Here’s how your home is under ‘staggering levels of surveillance’ ‘Smart home’ devices such as TVs, virtual assistants and toothbrushes are leaving British homes vulnerable to “staggering levels of corporate […]

‘Smart home’ devices such as TVs, virtual assistants and toothbrushes are leaving British homes vulnerable to “staggering levels of corporate surveillance”, new research has found.

An investigation by Which? magazine looked at the data gathered from 19 different smart gadgets during a month, with security experts ploughing through the results and privacy policies of the various gadgets.

One Samsung TV was found to have connected to more than 700 distinct email addresses in just 15 minutes, while a Phillips electric toothbrush was able to record audio – despite having no listed reason to do so.

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The era of the smart home

How it works Most connected products have apps – and these usually ask for permission to access things such as your photos or camera. Some of these requests are pretty logical (an internet connection, for example), but other examples aren’t. The Which? investigation found a watch which wanted to be able to reboot your phone, a vaccum that wants to record audio, and many apps also asked for exact location data. The tests also saw more than 20 other companies involved in a ‘smart’ device behind the scenes, including marketing companies

So-called smart devices – designed to make certain aspects of our lives easier – have been on a dramatic rise in the UK. Research earlier this year found that almost 60% of homes are expected to own at least one smart device by 2022.

Speaking to i, Paul Bernal, a security and surveillance expert from the University of East Anglia, said the findings were no surprise.

“Most people in the privacy field have known that the Internet of Things is a privacy disaster for years,” he explained. “The manufacturers of ‘smart’ devices have never taken privacy seriously unless they except when caught out by some kind of disaster.

“Data is gathered way beyond what is necessary, and consent is ridden roughshod over – most people have no idea what products are doing and how it might cause problems. If people understood more, they’d be far less likely to embrace these ‘smart’ devices that mostly give very little real benefit to the consumer.

“The market is very competitive,” he added, saying this led to costs being squeezed and corners cut in terms of both security and privacy,

“The result is a whole set of risks, form the obvious profiling stuff to the devices being hacked – and from their the consumer’s whole network being hacked.”

Speaking about the newly introduced GDPR laws to better protect our data, he said it had the potential to make a difference if it’s enforced strongly enough.

“I hope it is, but I have a feeling the authorities will be going after different targets. At the moment, very few people really take the problems of the internet of things seriously enough.

Alex Neill, Which?’s managing director of home products and services, said that while such gadgets can bring “huge benefits to our daily lives”, they are often collecting “vast amounts of data about us”.

“Companies should be clear about how they are collecting and using data, and ensure consumers feel in control about what they are sharing without having to trawl through impenetrable terms and conditions.”

In order to minimise risk, the consumer watchdog encourages people to check if they can turn permissions of when they’re not necessary.

It also suggests ‘dirtying’ your data by using email addresses specifically created for spam, and considering if you even need a smart device at all.