British Watchdog Cracks Down on Data Collection by Smart TVs, Speakers And Air Fryers (theguardian.com) 43
The UK Information Commissioner's Office has issued its first guidance demanding manufacturers of air fryers, smart speakers, fertility trackers, and smart TVs respect users' privacy rights after reports of excessive data collection in homes.
The regulator requires companies to ensure data security, provide transparency to consumers, and regularly delete collected information. Stephen Almond, the ICO's executive director for regulatory risk, said smart products know who users live with, their music preferences, and medication details. The guidance addresses "internet of things" devices, including fertility trackers that record menstrual dates and body temperature before sending data to manufacturer servers.
Additionally, smart speakers that monitor family members and visitors must allow users to configure settings that minimize personal information collection. The ICO warned manufacturers it stands ready to take enforcement action in the event of noncompliance.
The regulator requires companies to ensure data security, provide transparency to consumers, and regularly delete collected information. Stephen Almond, the ICO's executive director for regulatory risk, said smart products know who users live with, their music preferences, and medication details. The guidance addresses "internet of things" devices, including fertility trackers that record menstrual dates and body temperature before sending data to manufacturer servers.
Additionally, smart speakers that monitor family members and visitors must allow users to configure settings that minimize personal information collection. The ICO warned manufacturers it stands ready to take enforcement action in the event of noncompliance.
"The ICO warned manufacturers it stands ready to (Score:2)
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That was different, that's "think of the children" , this is common citizen privacy, where you can expect much less enforcement.
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That was different, that's "think of the children" , this is common citizen privacy, where you can expect much less enforcement.
Well ICO has just fined 23andMe £2.31m [bbc.co.uk] over their data breach in 2023 that exposed sensitive personal information, family histories, and health conditions. They also fined Facebook £500,000, the maximum fine at the time, back in 2018 for the Cambridge Analytica scandal just because Facebook had given app developers access to people's data "without clear consent". So yes we do carry out enforcement when it involves citizen privacy.
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The fines you mention are a slap on the wrist. But I get your point: enforcement happens.
Now if we could slap a 4% of global turnover (GDPR fines) on a company, to show we're serious...
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Then you'd see no air fryers, smart TV's or smart speakers being sold in the UK for a reasonable price.
Data subsidizes the sale of consumer electronics regrettably. Someone somewhere is willing to pay for that data so that they can use it against the consumer who bought the connected electronics item.
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Then you'd see no air fryers, smart TV's or smart speakers being sold in the UK for a reasonable price.
Fantastic. Then we can go back to having dumb devices that just do their jobs and don't have all the other junk attached competing for the market instead. That worked for a few generations before all the 1984 stuff. I'm betting it will work just fine for generations after it too.
And please spare us the rhetoric about how nothing could possibly be affordable if it doesn't violate our privacy to help pay for itself. The difference in pricing in a competitive market is likely to be pretty small. The only reaso
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WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone explain this to me? I mean, I see the obvious problems with smart TVs, fertility trackers, and smart speakers. But what the hell is my air fryer collecting about me? That's just a bridge too far, man. I mean, I can kind of see my refrigerator violating my privacy by tracking how much of some foodstuff I consume. But an air fryer? What, is the thing reporting back to home base about how long I fried some damned chicken? And a better question, which I know we're all thinking: What in the unholy fuck of life does my air fryer (or my refrigerator, or microwave, or oven) need to be on the fucking Internet?
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Re: WTF? (Score:2)
They're just needlessly trying to make products all singing and dancing. Just like the funky toaster in Ghostbusters.
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... or Red Dwarf.
Re: WTF? (Score:2)
Get ready to have your fridge to start advertising diet advice to you one day. It's definitely going to happen, just a matter of time.
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If I had one of those fridges or whatever, I'd just remove the WiFi on the thing and do some electronics workarounds to disable all the "smart" things.
Computer on WiFi, of course... cell phone and tablet on WiFi, okay... smart tv on WiFi, understandable... toaster on WiFi, you get to meet the screwdriver.
Re: WTF? (Score:2)
If you disabled wifi, it'd probably keep nagging you to turn it back on.
If you disabled smart features via hacks, it'd probably void warranty at the very least. Or the appliance would stop working because of DRM detecting changes to binaries.
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Of course, since there's an app on your phone.... sky's the limit on what else it could collect.
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But why control it remotely?
Unless you have a robot that can put food in it and take it out, what good does that do you? It's not as if you are going to leave food in it all day long, waiting for its chance to cook. Are you? ARE YOU?!?
Re: WTF? (Score:2)
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I'm not saying these are particularly necessary or useful features... but some marketing guy convinced someone they can upcharge folks for them
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Imagine you're an air fryer manufacturer. Wouldn't it be kind of neat to know how often people use it, and how long they use it for? You could then tune your design to account for average real-world use. Maybe this component can be slightly cheaper, so it'll fail soon after warranty expires but not before.
You probably get their GeoIP locations too; that's a good thing to have on customers. Oh, no customers in this area? Buy an ad that targets that area.
There's incentive (for them!) to do this.
Devil's advocate here (Score:3)
The most famous example is the father who found out his teenage daughter was pregnant when Target started sending him coupons for baby stuff.
The girl had done some shopping and bought several things that weren't directly related to pregnancy. But if you are buying all those things together Target had figu
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I thought the same thing. Air fryer? Why the fuck would I connect an air fryer to the internet?
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I thought the same thing. Air fryer? Why the fuck would I connect an air fryer to the internet?
Most people here would NEVER connect such an appliance to the 'net. But then most of us here can probably do an end-run around any interlocks which prevent the thing from working if it can't phone home.
To be clear, we're on the verge of an era in which many, many appliances will be crippled - or simply not work - if they fail to contact the mothership within a specified period of time. And most people will roll over, or bend over, for this shit - either because they feel they have no choice, or because they
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And most people will roll over, or bend over, for this shit - either because they feel they have no choice, or because they're incapable of grasping the implications and consequences.
Which is exactly why it's vital for governments and their regulatory bodies to step in and protect the ordinary citizen who isn't an expert on these things from the abuse that the big companies who are will otherwise commit in the name of profit, just as they already do with financial services, caterers, healthcare providers, and so on.
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I agree entirely. The only way we'll have government like that is if we start lynching - perhaps literally - both the people who bribe leaders, and the leaders who allow themselves to be bribed. And we have to figure out a way to eliminate the revolving doors between governments and corporations.
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How else would you get firmware updates? ;-)
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I can see an air fryer company wanting to collect real world data to see how often you use it, what settings you typically use, and other metrics to determine how they could improve the product to better match actual use vs what they guess people do with them. That said, I'm never letting a kitchen appliance connect to the internet. I'd rather have less quality than allow the risk of the 100 things that can go wrong with such access.
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"Criminal hackers can connect to your air fryer and torch your kitchen. Is your air fryer at risk? Also, news on the leaked sex videos from the security cam that some douchebag connected to the Internet with the default passwords. And dozens of Hollywood celebrities are reeling after their naughty photos were hijacked from their iCloud accounts for which they set their PIN to the last four of their phone number in what is being called 'The Fappening 3'. Your world and more at 10."
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I want to know who bothers hooking up an air fryer on your wifi to begin with. What possible good is that going to do when there's only two things an air fryer needs to know: time and temperature.
A wifi-enabled air fryer is fucking stupid, and if you are paying for that radio to be in there, you deserve what you get.
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Where are you that you have to register a gun?
My guess would be some progressive hellscape like New York or California. Maybe San Francisco [sfstandard.com] where given their problem of street feces maybe they should require people to register their asses instead. Or maybe Chicago, because we all know how well those gun laws are working to alleviate shootings.
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This will do nothing to stop a criminal from using a fire arm. Criminals do their own thing regardless of any laws, regulations, or mandates enabled.
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The only place where a gun would have a valid use for self defense is when people are screaming.
But maybe you just want to ban guns.
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As soon as the police and military are required to use "smart guns", then I'll be okay with that. Turns out, those organizations have zero interest in smart guns. I couldn't imagine why...
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I think your ideas for our handgun manufacturing business are going to reduce the sales of our product, not increase them.
But you're not fired! Keep reading.
You see, I do sort of like the idea of using DRM to effecively remove the First Sale Doctrine. It would be good if our product could be unlocked by only one customer, and other prospective customers had to buy their own. It would also be good if it can't be resold; we don't want a used-gun market plaguing us like the used-book market plagues publisher
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Obviously you are not a gun owner.
You know I've told my therapist (Score:3)
Air Fryer based espionage (Score:2)
I admit it is kinda tinfoil hat conspiracy level stuff, but consider this....
China (or whoever) builds all kinds of electronics and appliances and floods many markets at cost. What if they made many of those items require internet access to work properly and most did just that. But all have some sort of backdoor that is nearly impossible to detect. Then one day when they are about to go to war or feeling hostile, they remote in to the 300K+ air fryers, speakers, dishwashers, ovens, etc. and tell them to ove
...and air fryers (Score:4, Funny)
You can't make this up. I started a novel in 2002 where the Internet went nuts and we had connected every possible thing to it, making us have to smash all our clocks, cameras, watches, appliances, etc and go low-tech.
Air Fryers was not on my BINGO card.