Voice to text chrome extension - any data protection concerns

[Ditto]

I'm reviewing a few voice to text chrome extensions (from Chromestore) for use on Windows 10 and 11 devices. I will be checking with our DPO, but does anyone have experience of this and have thought about data concerns?

[enjay]

I think the concerns are the same as for voice-to-text in Office, or even Siri, Alexa and the like. Can a human listen to what you said? If so, will that human only use it for quality control on the accuracy of what was typed?

[PotNoodleTech]

Frankly if your using any of the third party voice to text (as opposed to that built into google/microsoft) it's the wild west. You'd have to deal with each company individually and try and get a DPIA or soemthing which won't be easy. At the very least study the permissions on play store etc carefully as some apps have acccess to a rediculous amount of unneeded info that you have then effectively lost control over.

[mavhc]

Windows has that built in though

[jthompson]

Windows has that built in though

 

This is what I'm thinking. Unless there's some particular reason for wanting a browser extension, why would the native OS feature not be the one to use?

[Ditto]

Thanks to those that mentioned Windows support - either I didn't know that or had forgotten! I was aware of Chromebook support. I will have to advise colleagues of the Windows key H option, I can't see a mic key on any of the laptops I have access too. I suppose the same data security question remains with Windows, but accept working with MS is going to be a more trodden path than a random extension writer. As an aside, who has a DPIA and Data sharing agreement that they can pull up that cover the MS estate? I'd suggest we don't, but I will asl the question.

 

The discussion has also raised another question about our outsourced IT suppliers. Given how hot they claim they are on security, why are the letting me add extensions with no consideration to data security

[mavhc]

Turns out outsourced supplies usually know less than you do, and have less incentive to do any extra work, who could have predicted that.

 

Our LA outsourced their WAN to BT, who setup cisco routers so that anyone in a school with access to the router could find out the password and access any other LA network: prison, library, council....