"Hear That? It’s Your Voice Being Taken for Profit." 12 September 2021.

... [M]any customer contact centers now approach and manage callers based on what they think the person’s voice or syntax reveal about the individual’s emotions, sentiments and personality...

Devices such as smart speakers and smartphones are now capturing both our words and the timbre of our voices...

On Jan. 12, Spotify received an extraordinary patent that claims the ability to pinpoint the emotional state, gender, age, accent and “numerous other characterizations” of an individual, with the aim of recommending music based on its analysis of those factors. In May, a coalition of over 180 musicians, human rights organizations and concerned individuals sent Spotify a letter demanding that it never use or monetize the patent. Spotify claims it has “no plans” to do so, but the coalition wants a stronger disavowal.

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VICE reported that Cerence’s chief technology officer told investors, “What we’re looking at is sharing this data back with” automakers, then “helping them monetize it.”

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In our country today, only a few states have biometric privacy laws that require a company to obtain explicit consent... The European Union, however, demands opt-in consent... In its privacy policy, the social app TikTok claimed the right to collect users’ voiceprints for broadly vague reasons, but as of June it also noted that only “where required by law, we will we seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection.”

These laws don’t go far enough to stop voice profiling...

We’re in a new world of biometrics, and we need to be aware of the dangers it can bring...