Personal data privacy and privacy in the digital age: Virtual voice assistants

In the digitalized world, the confidentiality and protection of personal data has become one of the most prioritized current problems of human rights. Digital technologies, which have become mandatory for individuals to use at every moment of their daily life, pose threats to the privacy of the individual, as well as having obvious positive aspects. Voice virtual assistants, one of these technologies, is software that can detect and respond to the voice commands of their users with artificial intelligence supported working systems, such as voice recognition and natural language processing. Voice virtual assistants can provide services through mobile phones and home speakers, having thus become tools that users always have with them. It is being developed exponentially every day depending on a wide variety of needs and it requires user data for this. In this study, voice virtual assistants are examined in terms of personal data privacy and the risks that can be experienced during the use of this technology are emphasized. Due to the importance of users' awareness of risks to personal data, interviews were conducted within the scope of the study, aiming to reveal the perception, attitude, and awareness levels of the students of the Faculty of Communication regarding voice virtual assistants and personal data privacy. The findings obtained from the interviews were analyzed with the MAXQDA qualitative data analysis program. As a result of the study, it has been seen that the users' knowledge of data privacy and privacy concerns are not always directly proportional, and that users adopt an attitude that accepts privacy violations even if they have information. They adopts this fact and continues to use smart technologies.