Negotiating Privacy with Smart Voice Assistants: Risk-Benefit and Control-Acceptance Tensions

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 4 Apr 2026] Negotiating Privacy with Smart Voice Assistants: Risk-Benefit and Control-Acceptance Tensions Molly Campbell, Mohamad Sheikho Al Jasem, Ajay Kumar Shrestha Smart Voice assistants (SVAs) are widely adopted by youth, yet privacy decision-making in these environments is often characterized by competing considerations rather than clear-cut preferences. While our prior research has examined privacy risks, benefits, trust, and self-efficacy as distinct predictors of behavior, less attention has been paid to how these factors combine into higher-level tension that shapes privacy outcomes. This study introduces a negotiation-based framework for understanding youth privacy decision-making with SVAs by operationalizing two composite indices: the Risk-Benefit Tension Index (RBTI) and the Control-Acceptance Tension Index (CATI), using survey data from 469 Canadian youth aged 16-24. We examine the distribution of these indices and their relationship with privacy-protective behavior and SVA usage. Results show that both indices are meaningfully associated with protective action. Frequent SVA usage exhibits more benefit-dominant and acceptance-leaning negotiation profiles, suggesting that convenience-driven engagement may come at the expense of perceived control. By reframing privacy decision-making as a process of negotiation rather than inconsistency, this study offers a complementary perspective on the privacy paradox and provides a compact measurement approach for capturing how youth navigate competing privacy pressures in voice-enabled ecosystems. Comments: To appear in the IEEE CSP 2026 proceedings Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computers and Society (cs.CY) Cite as: arXiv:2604.06235 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2604.06235v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.06235 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ajay Shrestha [view email] [v1] Sat, 4 Apr 2026 06:35:59 UTC (435 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.AI cs.CY References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)