The Lord of the (speaking) Rings: An interdisciplinary Fellowship to deal with 7 legal issues

Abstract

One smart speaker to rule them all, one sensor to find them, one device to bring them all and in the Internet of Things bind them. Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) represent an interactive phenomenon that is disrupting social interactions as we knew them. The spectrum of legal issues that arises from these user-device relationships has a wide range of impacts on society. This paper addresses seven legal issues arising from these interactions that affect Privacy and Law concerning consumer protection, profiling, liability, security, neutrality, influence and data protection. It aims to prompt an interdisciplinary discussion between Human-Computer Interaction, legal and Privacy researchers in order to address the lack of regulation around aspects of CUI and stimulate legal, policy and design confrontations.