Is Your Air Fryer Spying On You?
I am not averse to gadgets that are smart. They sense when my water thermos is about to overflow, when my vehicle is about to hit something, or when there is a speck of dust on my carpet. However, it seems that certain apps which make gadgets smart have gone way too far in gathering information that is unnecessary and an invasion of privacy.
An easy example would be if you had purchased a Yamaha keyboard, and the app asked for your location. Why would the keyboard need to know your location? But if you had purchased a Yamaha motorcycle, then it might make sense for the app to know your location to provide a convenient repair shop for servicing or to track the location of your motorcycle in case it was stolen or an emergency had occurred.
The latest news is that your air fryer may be spying on you. Apparently, when you install an air fryer, it may ask for your location, a recording of your voice, your gender, and your date of birth. Some air fryers send the information to servers in China. That gives me pause. Why do servers in China need to have all of our personal information? The air fryers do come with the appropriate privacy notices, but do you read those? If you do, do you make the appropriate adjustments so that absolutely zero permissions are granted to the app that controls the air fryer? Full disclosure—I don’t own an air fryer, so I can’t give you the nitty gritty on how to disable the app. Of course, there is always the problem that if you turn all permissions off, the air fryer won’t work.
At this point you are probably thinking I don’t care if my air fryer knows everything about me. How about your carpet cleaner? What if it was circling around you while you were having a private moment? Today, a robot-carpet cleaner is a miracle of efficiency, cleaning thoroughly, somewhat quieter than an airplane taking off next door, and crying for help if an obstruction (a toddler, a throw rug, a pile of papers, etc.) has firmly taken hold of it or flipped it over. It only became such a helpful worker as a result of years of testing.
The manufacturers hired workers in various parts of the world, and had them view what the carpet cleaner was seeing. As with any app, it only works if it has a lot of data. It needs to know when the bed or the rung of a chair is too low to the ground so that it may get stuck underneath. Bedroom furniture in Japan, Sweden, or the US may differ, so the carpet cleaner needs to be programmed for the differences.
What could go wrong? The human component of programming. In one country, the programmers were testing a new vacuum cleaner, but they were not sure what they were seeing. They were not acting maliciously or fraudulently. They just needed some help to perfect the programming. So, they posted photos of the curiosities on Facebook. One could ask who was supervising the programmers that if there was a blurred image or concern as to the nature of an object, the programmers’ first choice for assistance was posting the photos on Facebook. Obviously, there was no sage person in the room to provide guidance. Unfortunately, what the programmer thought was a confusing photo was not for the general public. In 2020, a photo of a woman on a toilet was posted on Facebook.
The robot-carpet cleaner is much more efficient these days. It has complex patterns to clean an entire room in a minimum amount of time. It can roll over cords and not get tangled up. It also knows enough to stay away from steps, barking dogs, and feet on the floor. I have several and love using them.
Some robot carpet cleaners use sonar or infrared sensors (sensing “cliffs” and “objects”) to navigate around or avoid obstacles. A university study reflects that some robot-carpet cleaners can “adapt to new input up to 67 times per second.” https://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~sklar/teaching/f06/cis1.0/papers/roomba-howstuffworks.pdf.
An infrared sensor is not the same as an infrared camera. For instance, an infrared sensor detects the presence of an object by measuring the reflected infrared light. In contrast, an infrared camera takes a visual image using infrared wavelengths. Bottom line: some robot-carpet cleaners use sonar or other sensors that capture no images; others use cameras which create images that may be shared.
I am happy to report that my robot-carpet cleaners do not have cameras. Have you checked your gadgets to see what they are up to today?