{"doi":"10.1111/jgs.18009","title":"Privacy concerns of older adults using voice assistant systems","abstract":"Voice assistant systems (VAS) are software platforms that complete various tasks using voice commands (e.g., Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant). VAS present opportunities for older adults to increase interactions with their environment, improve home safety, participate in remote monitoring, and optimize medication adherence and may be underutilized.1 In a recent study, VAS ownership and use in older adults (>60 years) was similar to that of younger adults (18–60 years).2 Yet, less is known about older adults' VAS related privacy concerns or their understanding of VAS-specific privacy risks (e.g., VAS-initiated interactions) which are important factors that may limit VAS use for health monitoring.1, 3 It is necessary to understand the juxtaposition of younger and older adults' VAS privacy concerns as younger adults may have different concerns impacting VAS acceptance. Therefore, we examined the differences in VAS related privacy concerns across the lifespan. We conducted a mixed-methods study using online surveys, semi-structured interviews, and qualitative and quantitative data analyses (February 2020–April 2021), to affirm consistency in results. This study was embedded within a VAS-related human subjects study aimed at identifying cognitive decline in older adults at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Dartmouth-Hitchcock.4 The institutional review boards approved this study. We recruited a younger cohort of individuals aged 18–64 years (n = 60) and an older cohort aged ≥65 years (n = 55) using researchmatch.com and geriatric specialty clinics at both sites. Participants aged ≥18 were English speaking and completed a privacy survey. All data were stored in REDCap.5 An adapted version of the Internet Users' Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) assessed privacy concerns (Table S1) and was completed without assistance.6 Participants who answered the four semi-structured interview questions (Table S2) to completion were included in the qualitative analysis (n = 11). All quantitative data were aggregated into a single dataset and the mean and standard deviation were calculated for each question. A t-test of unequal variance compared continuous variables and a χ2 for categorical. A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Listening-in, tracking, and unwanted sharing of information were used as pre-determined, a priori, qualitative themes for the semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were manually reviewed and coded by two reviewers, with 100% agreement upon coding. A total of 115 participants were recruited, 60 younger adults (mean age 36.3 ± 12.6 years, 77% female) and 55 older adults (mean age 73.3 ± 5.6 years, 42% female) (Table 1). Older adults had less VAS-related privacy concerns than younger adults regarding data being collected under user consent, data security, and data protection (Table 2). Both groups noted that data should be highly protected and were uncomfortable with daily monitoring. Both groups wanted stricter privacy regulations but differences did not reach statistical significance. The frequency of privacy concerns for the semi-structured interviews were: listening-in (n = 4), tracking (n = 2), and unwanted sharing of information (n = 5) (Table S2). Our findings suggest that older adults may have less privacy concerns about VAS use than younger adults. However, it is unclear if older adults understood the privacy risks associated with VAS use. While older adults have VAS privacy concerns, they have less desire for strict privacy regulations than younger adults. Our study identifies VAS-specific privacy concerns and risk comprehension across the lifespan, which has important implications for VAS privacy education. The discordant VAS privacy concerns of older adults in our study are of particular concern as it increases their potential risk of identity and financial theft.3 Contributing factors may include the digital divide (i.e., younger adults on average are more exposed to techno","journal":"Journal of the American Geriatrics Society","year":2022,"id":245930,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":13,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9562,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":670073,"name":"Tiffany Driesse","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":881174,"name":"David H. Lynch","orcid":"0000-0002-2512-9367","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":658316,"name":"Xiaohui Liang","orcid":"0000-0003-4064-2393","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":315571,"name":"Robert M. Roth","orcid":"0000-0003-4374-6569","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":299654,"name":"David Kotz","orcid":"0000-0001-7411-2783","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":801785,"name":"Karen L. Fortuna","orcid":"0000-0003-0343-2346","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272507,"name":"John A. Batsis","orcid":"0000-0002-0845-4416","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":881173,"name":"Hillary Spangler","orcid":"0000-0003-4027-4113","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":6,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:23:39.284121Z","pmid":"36027568","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}