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

View PDF Abstract: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 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Ajay Shrestha [view email] [v1] Sat, 4 Apr 2026 06:35:59 UTC (435 KB)