Maintaining privacy with AAC
The ability to analyse a users language is a valuable thing. It can improve language predictions and understanding for both the user and others, but this comes with the risk of decreasing the amount of privacy available to the user. Of course, privacy should be the utmost priority; an AAC user should not have less privacy rights than a non-user, simply because of the technology which aids them.
The complications here are intricate and important. One level of this is informed consent. To truly consent to data collection, a user needs to understand exactly what is being collected, how, and the implications of this. A solution would be to collect no data at all, but the advantages of collecting language samples are considerable. Of course, the aim of language collection is a benevolent one: to optimise AAC use, but this could lead to a slippery slope of data collection with the end result being a complete lack of privacy for such users. It's important that there 