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Roomba Testers Feel Misled After Intimate Images Ended Up on Facebook (technologyreview.com) 76

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An investigation recently revealed how images of a minor and a tester on the toilet ended up on social media. iRobot said it had consent to collect this kind of data from inside homes -- but participants say otherwise. From a report: When Greg unboxed a new Roomba robot vacuum cleaner in December 2019, he thought he knew what he was getting into. He would allow the preproduction test version of iRobot's Roomba J series device to roam around his house, let it collect all sorts of data to help improve its artificial intelligence, and provide feedback to iRobot about his user experience. He had done this all before. Outside of his day job as an engineer at a software company, Greg had been beta-testing products for the past decade. He estimates that he's tested over 50 products in that time -- everything from sneakers to smart home cameras.

But what Greg didn't know -- and does not believe he consented to -- was that iRobot would share test users' data in a sprawling, global data supply chain, where everything (and every person) captured by the devices' front-facing cameras could be seen, and perhaps annotated, by low-paid contractors outside the United States who could screenshot and share images at their will. Greg, who asked that we identify him only by his first name because he signed a nondisclosure agreement with iRobot, is not the only test user who feels dismayed and betrayed. Nearly a dozen people who participated in iRobot's data collection efforts between 2019 and 2022 have come forward in the weeks since MIT Technology Review published an investigation into how the company uses images captured from inside real homes to train its artificial intelligence. The participants have shared similar concerns about how iRobot handled their data -- and whether those practices conform with the company's own data protection promises. After all, the agreements go both ways, and whether or not the company legally violated its promises, the participants feel misled.
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Roomba Testers Feel Misled After Intimate Images Ended Up on Facebook More

Roomba Testers Feel Misled After Intimate Images Ended Up on Facebook

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  • "...But what Greg didn't know -- and does not believe he consented to -- was that iRobot would share test users' data in a sprawling, global data supply chain, where everything (and every person) captured by the devices' front-facing cameras could be seen, and perhaps annotated, by low-paid contractors outside the United States.."

    Wait don't tell me, let me guess...this is the user who represents 0.00001% of society who actually READ the EULA, right?

    Right?

    Uh huh. I thought so.

    • Re:In a word? EULA. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @02:42PM (#63196802) Homepage

      That really just pushes the point that EULAs shouldn't be a thing. No one is going to read an 80 page legal document before running an appliance, it needs to be simplified with the important points made more visible

    • Re:In a word? EULA. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:06PM (#63196916) Journal

      No, fuck off.

      A device you can buy in a shop for money doesn't require a fucking license to use it.

      Sure you paid $500 but we can arbitrarily fuck you over if you didn't read the thousand pages of small print is not in any way reasonable.

      • Sure you paid $500 but we can arbitrarily fuck you over if you didn't read the thousand pages of small print is not in any way reasonable.

        This reminds me of the time I asked the closing agent at the title company how long it actually takes if people were to read every page of the mortgage contract, which ironically is worth a metric fuckton more than $500.

        The answer I got was simple and quick. "Four hours, forty-five minutes on average. And only lawyers do it."

        Go figure as to why they do.

        If you choose to not read it, the company will be the one telling you to kindly fuck off.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by G00F ( 241765 )

          I sped skimmed it, where I could get the gist of each point, the closing agent was pissed that I spent those 5-10 min to do so.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      So this one user is the only one who read it, but a bunch of others somehow agreed to it, signed it, and sent it back? WTF!

      Wait.. you're saying they didn't do all that, but they're still suspected of having agreed? Double WTF!!

  • Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)

    by muh_freeze_peach ( 9622152 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @02:25PM (#63196708)
    You don't invite the surveillance equipment into your home and then make a pikachu face when it surveils you.
    Unless you're a fucking idiot.

    • You don't invite the surveillance equipment into your home and then make a pikachu face when it surveils you.
      Unless you're a fucking idiot.

      Isn't the issue that they shared the images on social media? WTF were they thinking?

      If you have a robot that is trying to identify objects in the environment, it should probably also be trained on humans with their dangly bits hanging out so so it doesn't try to vacuum clean the dangly bits post training.

      What is not ok is sharing the images for other humans to see or worse, putting it into a generative AI where it can make a myriad of images trained on your dangly bits.

      • Isn't the issue that they shared the images on social media? WTF were they thinking?

        "They" in this case, were low paid contractors overseas, and not employees of iRobot. This is a failure of the contractor, but we know how this will play out.

        • Isn't the issue that they shared the images on social media? WTF were they thinking?

          "They" in this case, were low paid contractors overseas, and not employees of iRobot. This is a failure of the contractor, but we know how this will play out.

          "I'm just fine with my unfit programmer body being strewn naked over the internet - it was only contractors" - Said nobody.

        • Work done for hire still comes back to the person who hired them. If Amazon's contract driver runs off with your package, they owe you a new package - whether they can recover damages from the contractor or not. If iRobot's overseas contractor runs off with pictures of your package, they are still responsible.

          • Okay. That being the case, this story should be about Scale AI.

            • Scale AI would have no access to these images if it weren't for iRobot handing them over. iRobot should definitely go after Scale AI, who definitely has no chance of going after underpaid contractors overseas.

    • Re:Dumb (Score:5, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:02PM (#63196894)

      Yes your comment is dumb. He's not complaining about the fact that he was surveyed, he is complaining that this data was misused, and that is a very legitimate complaint in the modern world where you literally can't do any transaction without handing over some form of data.

      • In the US, if data can be misused then it almost certainly will. Additionally, you should assume that any collected information will be publicly divulged. This may mean you have to do without a few modern conveniences but it's better than this kind dystopian outcome.

        This isn't paranoia but rather, it is prudence. Corporations are bad actors and they will act in bad faith when it suits them. Never trust a corporation act to in your best interest.

  • Should be illegal (Score:3)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @02:31PM (#63196734)
    As dumb as this guy was, this kinda shit should be illegal.
    Software companies should not be allowed to collect data without explicit consent written in 25 words or less.

    • As dumb as this guy was, this kinda shit should be illegal. Software companies should not be allowed to collect data without explicit consent written in 25 words or less.

      Let me define that 25-word "consent" in a single price tag for you to understand how it's so generously accepted by the Gig Generation, and how we got here.

      "Free"

    • As dumb as this guy was

      Literally every interaction you have with any company in any way requires you to hand over some form of data. The issue here is that iRobot execs should have their testicles chewed up buy one of their vacuum cleaners for mishandling data. The issue here isn't the consent to collect data, that was requested and was given. The issue is that said data was outsourced to third parties and wasn't securely handles and was leaked to the public.

      There should be no level of consent possible for this kind of reckless u

  • Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @02:39PM (#63196778)

    This is why Amazon bought iRobot. Alexa is the audio recordings of your household. Now the Roomba has given them detailed floor plans.

  • Widespread domestic corporate spying must end!

  • Greg had been beta-testing products for the past decade.

    So put aside the fact he installed an invasive monitoring system that just happened to clean floors, how does this guy get the opportunity to beta test so many things?

    I've been a product beta tester before but just a few times - it was always kind of hard to get into position where a company will use you for that, I wonder how he managed to be a tester for so many products.

    • It's amazing what you can get when you're willing to have naked pictures of you shared on the interwebz.

    • Re:How does one get this sweet testing gig (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:03PM (#63196900)
      In my experience it was because of comments and feedback I left. Back around 2010 NewEgg contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a product tester. When I agreed I started receiving on average one to two items per month. As time went on this amount increased to the point where I had to ask them to remove me because I just didn't the time to to test so many things. I was asked to test and then write a review of my experience. It was nice getting free tech items but I was not allowed to resell them after the testing period. This was before the big IoT push and cloud everywhere. I don't think I would want to test things today given the way companies creep people nowadays. This iRobot incident being a perfect example.

      • Interesting, I do review products on Amazon but have not yet been offered any free items.

        • Back then NewEgg didn't require the items to be sent back. I was asked simply to test and review and afterwards the items were mine to keep. In fact I'm still using one of the wireless routers they sent me and a 1TB portable USB Seagate drive (that interestingly contains a Hitachi hard drive). Many of the items sent to me were network related such switches, hubs, and routers. Most of that stuff ended up with friends and family since they were nice upgrades at the time.

    • You must have been really crap at it. My girlfriend also beta tested products, she clocked 10 in one single year.

  • Sounds familiar (Score:4, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:08PM (#63196926)

    I wonder if this has anything to do with this story [slashdot.org].

  • I know victim blaming is uncool, but if you didn't fuck your roomba, there wouldn't be any Intimate Images to share. :)

    • I know victim blaming is uncool, but if you didn't fuck your roomba, there wouldn't be any Intimate Images to share. :)

      I don't think it's specifically victim blaming, but how do people think this stuff works? Majick?

      I suppose the "worst" thing is the lady sitting on the toilet. Big deal. We have a Roomba, it does it's work and then goes back to it's recharge pod. Actually works pretty well. Don't take a dump when it's in the room if that's a problem for yinz.

      And it would be cool if the images were timestamped. Might be handy as an alabi.

      If a person is so soviet that they demand their floor layout be some sort of secr

  • Someone had to say it (Score:4, Funny)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @03:17PM (#63196990) Homepage

    I hate that corporations feel they can hoover up all the data they want. In a nutshell, this situation sucks.

  • I knew this would happen when I heard there was an actual imaging camera on the devices. A sonic or laser ranging can make useful results with relatively simple processing ("Oh, I'm close, better go over here, and remember that in my map"), but a visual camera would take additional processing power to make any use of it. And that's just talking on-device. The leap that made me never want one was that for it to make any "intelligent" inferences from what it sees, it must be trained, and that takes all that b

  • XHamster announces a new Roomba cam category for all your fetish needs.

  • As the saying goes... Dance with the devil, you're gonna get burned. zero mercy these idiots. Same for the morons who have "ring", "echo", "dot", "alexa", a "smart refrigerator" or any other home spywear.

    • zero mercy these idiots. Same for the morons who have "ring", "echo", "dot", "alexa", a "smart refrigerator" or any other home spywear.

      "Cellphone"? You must despise most of the world then. And yourself too probably.

  • All Amazon / Roomba would have to show is the wording that clearly states, "any and all pictures, regardless as to context, location, personal present, or action being carried out is fair game to be captured and uploaded". Of course, it might not be that exact wording, but certainly something close to that should exist, if it doesn't then I would believe the people who the claim the violation!

  • Opt in /out argument (Score:3)

    by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @06:44PM (#63197550)
    Same as cable TV opt in/out debate from decades ago. If you don't say NO it doesn't mean you said YES.

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