Add privacy and security mitigations to the Web Speech API - #165
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evanbliu wants to merge 3 commits into
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Add privacy and security mitigations to the Web Speech API#165evanbliu wants to merge 3 commits into
evanbliu wants to merge 3 commits into
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…I to the Web Speech API
…I to the Web Speech API
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@padenot - I just realized this PR was never merged. Can you please take a look when you get a chance? |
…I to the Web Speech API
hoch
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Aug 25, 2026
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| Evicting downloads in response to user-controlled actions (e.g., via a browser settings UI) is not problematic. | ||
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| <h5 id="on-device-model-privacy-availability-alternatives">Alternate Options</h5> |
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Perhaps I am missing something, but:
In the "Download Masking" section above, partitioning availability by [=storage key=] was made a normative must requirement in the latest commit. However, this section still frames storage key partitioning as an alternative option with trade-offs.
Should we update or remove this subsection so it doesn't contradict the mandatory partitioning requirement in the masking section?
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| * The {{SpeechRecognition/install()}} method both requires and consumes [=user activation=], when it would initiate a download. | ||
| * The {{SpeechRecognition/install()}} method allows the user agent to prompt the user for permission, or to implicitly reject download attempts based on previous signals (such as an observed pattern of abuse). | ||
| * Access to {{SpeechRecognition/install()}} and {{SpeechRecognition/available()}} is gated on an per-API [=policy-controlled feature=], which means that only top-level origins and their delegates can use the API. |
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| To prevent cross-origin fingerprinting and site collusion, user agents <strong>must</strong> partition language pack availability by [=storage key=]. User agents <strong>must</strong> mask the current download status by returning {{"downloadable"}} from {{SpeechRecognition/available()}} by default, even if the actual underlying language pack is {{"available"}} or {{"downloading"}} on the user's device. | ||
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| This masking state is established for each (API, options, [=storage key=]) tuple. The user agent <strong>must only</strong> set the state to "unmasked" for a specific [=storage key=] after a web page within that key explicitly calls {{SpeechRecognition/install()}} with a given set of options, and successfully starts a download or the promise resolves to <code>true</code> (indicating the language pack is ready). |
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formatting nit: <code>true</code> -> `true`
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This PR adds the privacy and security mitigations used by the Writing Assistance APIs to the on-device speech recognition part of the Web Speech API.
Closes #158
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