HTML5 Voice Input mic access

Question

How does the HTML5 Voice input on Chrome (Mac) get access to the mic? Is it because I have the google voice plugin installed?

Shouldn't the browser explicitly ask for permission before giving access?

http://slides.html5rocks.com/#speech-input

Answer 1

The microphone isn't directly being exposed to the Web page—it's just posting the speech (and receiving text) through Google servers so it's not considered a security issue (and you have to click the microphone icon to start it). It's pretty similar to how voice input works on Android and Google's iPhone/Blackberry apps.

Answer 2

It is explicitly asking permission before giving access, that's what clicking the microphone icon is.

Think of it more like the <input type="file"> element -- you click "Browse", it shows you your file system, and the browser sends the selected file directly to the server.