Sees you when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake
Beware smart home gifts, foundation says
Teddy bears linked to your smartphone, smart home speakers, a baby monitor with sensors that let you “feel” motion in the nursery. All great holiday gifts — unless they spy on you, says the second annual Mozilla Foundation shopping guide to the naughty and the nice among Web-connected smart devices.
From Apple TV to the Fredi wireless baby monitor, 70 tech products are included in the 2018 edition of the foundation’s “Privacy Not Included” buyers’ guide that rates toys and devices according to their security practices. It also uses an interactive tool to let website visitors indicate their level of comfort with the product and whether they’d be likely to buy it.
Mozilla, a Silicon Valley not-for-profit known as the maker of the open source Firefox Web browser, says the aim is to help people make sound tech-buying decisionsthat factor in security as well as price and performance.
“We wanted to reach average people as consumers through their pocketbooks” said the guide’s creator, Jen Caltrider. “We are not Consumer Reports, but we can give people some tools to help them make good decisions.”
She said Mozilla has surveyed its members since last year’s first shopping guide and found strong interest in the privacy and security of connected toys and smart home products. “People know they should care but they have no real way to understand what they should do, so they start to get resigned. They say ‘I’ll just take my chances.’”
According to research for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada most Canadians sense that protection of personal information is diminishing, while concern about how personal information is being used by companies mounts.
Nearly 70 per cent of consumers believe companies are vulnerable to hacks and cyberattacks, according to separate research by accounting and
consulting firm PwC.
Nearly 90 per cent of consumers say they will take their business elsewhere if they don’t trust a company.
Caltrider, meanwhile, said some vendors have disputed negative ratings and some have altered their practices to achieve a better result.
“Part of the goal is to create a dialogue with the companies to say are you doing the best you can to build privacy and security into your products,” she said.