smart home devices actively collect user data – Kommersant

British consumer magazine Which? published a study on how various smart home devices – including cameras, TVs, washing machines, speakers – collect information about users. According to the magazine, they collect much more data than is necessary for the normal operation of the systems, and in addition, they often transfer it to third parties.

Home gadgets can collect huge amounts of data about people’s habits, interests, preferred brands, income levels, etc. For example, smart washing machines collect data on how often you wash and at what temperature, this information can be useful powders and electricity suppliers. Smart cameras can collect information about where you live, how big your house is, what kind of car you have, and based on this, evaluate the level of wealth.

According to Which?, home gadgets not only collect such data, but also actively share it with third parties. So, for example, the authors of the study found that many smart speakers transmit data to large corporations – Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), Google, etc. Smart cameras are quite active in transmitting data: for example, the study cites cameras from the Chinese brand Ezviz, which can share information with Pangle (the marketing arm of TikTok), Huawei, Google, Meta.

“Consumers have already paid for smart products, sometimes thousands of pounds, so having to ‘pay’ extra with their personal information is too much,” says Which? for policy and consumer protection, Rocio Concha. In her opinion, such companies should not collect more information than is necessary for the normal operation of devices, and even more so should not hide the fact of collecting information from consumers. Most companies responded to the magazine’s request that they comply with all rules and inform users about data collection.

Magazine Which? produced by the British Consumers Association since 1957. He writes about consumer rights, compares different consumer products, gives advice on how to save money on the purchase of certain goods, etc.

Yesterday the non-profit organization Mozilla Foundation published study that 25 major automakers, including Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, Tesla, also collect too much user information and share it with third parties.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya