One cannot argue that smart home devices and virtual assistants have recently become very popular in our everyday life.
We use smart TVs, smart refrigerators, smart toothbrushes, smart ovens, smart lighting systems, etc.
Almost every home appliance we can think of, probably has its ‘smart’ version with the Internet connection and a dedicated mobile app to control it.
All these devices have been designed to make our everyday life easier and more comfortable.
We can e.g.: look inside our refrigerator to check if we have run out of milk or eggs, set the desired temperature in the living room or check if washing is finished.
We can also use a smart speaker to check the weather, turn the lights on or play music using our voice.
Most of us use at least one smart device in our household and most of us also know the general truth that big Internet
companies like Google, Facebook or Amazon spy on us all the time when we use their services.
Unfortunately, smart home devices are no different here, they constantly report our activities, habits and favourite products and services to their manufacturers’ servers.
We have no means to control when and how the data about us is shared and how it is further used.
In this video Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu have shared results of the experiment they performed in order to check how much and what kind of data is exchanged
when we use smart home devices in our households.
Questions
1. Do you use (and if yes, what kind of) smart home devices do you use on a daily basis ?
2. Did you know how much sensitive data is shared via smart home devices ?
3. Would you consider security and privacy aspects a decision making factor when deciding whether
to buy or not a smart home device ?
2. Did you know how much sensitive data is shared via smart home devices ?
3. Would you consider security and privacy aspects a decision making factor when deciding whether
to buy or not a smart home device ?
Comments
I didn’t know precisely how much and how sensitive data is shared and collected by smart devices but I was sure that it’s terrifying and this video isn’t scary for me.
I think that I’ll consider security and privacy aspects when I’ll be choosing next smart device but the question is “Will I have any choice?”
I am aware of how sensitive data is shared and stored by smart speakers, especially the ones from Amazon and Google. I recently stumbled upon a report that a user executed their GDPR right to download all data that Amazon has on them and they got recordings of a completely different person. That’s a major privacy violation showing how dangerous the collection of personal data is.
Privacy is definitely a factor for me when buying devices, not only smart home ones. I definitely prefer Apple products because with their stand on privacy as a fundamental human right, I can be pretty confident my data not only can’t leak but it’s not collected in the first place.
I am aware of how much data about me is contained in the network. You can't really do much about it, except maybe do not share it directly. But you can't stop your devices from sharing your IP address, for example, because otherwise you wouldn't have a connection to the network.
Have you heard that Mark Facebookberg has banned all Apple devices from Facebook office? That's the security consideration I'd follow.
Yes, I know and that's why I am not willing to buy one of these smart speakers. If big companies collect data about you then they probably will sell it to some third-party company who might use it for some malicious purposes. In my opinion, this is why people should reconsider buying smart home devices.
Yes and I believe that if you value your privacy then you should care about what kind of information about you can be exposed to the Internet. One should also remember that every smart home system has its own vulnerabilities and with given time and effort can be easily hacked and become a spying device.
Not really. The only one beside smartphone is 'smart mirror'. But it runs open source software so I know that it's not going to help google in doing evil things.
2. Did you know how much sensitive data is shared via smart home devices ?
Yeah, I'm also pretty sure that most of people know too. They just don't care. These devices are really handy and at the first sight it looks that they collect useless data
3. Would you consider security and privacy aspects a decision making factor when deciding whether to buy or not a smart home device ?
Yes. And in that case I would choose Apple products. They are known for treating privacy seriously but it is at one huge cost. Their home assistant services are just worse then google and amazon assistants.
I have smart bulbs, but I think they haven't any camera or microphone and of course I use my smartphone every day.
2. Did you know how much sensitive data is shared via smart home devices ?
I knw that a lot of smartphone apps like facebook gather a lot of information I think it's a price (not money but our data) of using this services.
3. Would you consider security and privacy aspects a decision making factor when deciding whether to buy or not a smart home device ?
I consider security and privacy aspectswhen I bought new device and I know that sometimes I have to make a compromise.
I'm aware of the fact that there is a chance that our sensitive data might be stolen, but I can accept this fact. It's not a big problem since we are aware of this. We do have cameras in our office, so in case of an accident we would see what happened, etc.
I do consider both aspects, but as I wrote, we always can make it harder to steal data or cause other barriers for potential attackers like cameras, extra locks, to store valuable items in locks, etc.
Last question? It depends on device destination but I often try to think about security and privacy aspects. I like new technology but I am trying to be careful everyday.