Santa’s Data: This Holiday’s Tech Gifts Are Creepier Than Ever

It’s onerous to imagine, however 2022 is sort of over, and meaning it’s time to begin fascinated by vacation buying. If devices are in your buying listing this 12 months, you would possibly wish to think about that while you give a tech reward you’re additionally giving a gift to the tech business: mountains of your loved-ones’ private knowledge.

Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, simply launched a privacy-minded holiday gift guide analyzing the info practices of 75 of the 12 months’s hottest tech devices. The listing consists of the Apple Watch, Amazon Echo, Google Pixel Watch, Steam Deck, Sonos Speakers and the Meta Quest Pro. The findings have been dismal. More devices are focusing on youngsters’ knowledge than ever earlier than, and Mozilla says latest firm acquisitions within the tech business imply much more info will make its manner into the palms of firms like Amazon and Google.

“We’re living through an unprecedented explosion of connected products,” stated Misha Rykov, a Mozilla privateness researcher, in a press launch. “There are now children’s toys, litter boxes, sunglasses, and vacuums that connect to the internet—and then scoop up and share precious personal information.”

Products from Amazon, Meta, Samsung, and Verizon all acquired Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included warning label, indicating they’ve severe privateness and safety considerations.

No one reads each privateness coverage they’re compelled to comply with; it might be a full time job. Mozilla researchers spent a median of 8 hours per product wading by means of the byzantine insurance policies related to them. They discovered that privateness insurance policies are getting much more onerous to customers, should you can think about such a factor. More units serve up a number of insurance policies it’s important to comply with for various {hardware}, apps, and options.

Take the Meta Quest Pro. To read its privacy policies, you’d need to open 14 different tabs in your browser and trudge through more than 37,700 words. That’s 6,747 words longer than A Christmas Carol, and it’s written in legalese rather than Charles Dickens’ comforting prose.

The Quest Pro tracks you, your body, your eyes and your emotions in unprecedented ways. Mozilla says it would take almost 5 hours to read all the privacy policies spelling out how Meta, formerly known as Facebook, will use all that biometric data.

Other products rang the privacy alarm bells as well. The Barnes & Noble Nook sends location data to third parties. Why? Who knows (the answer is usually money). While the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag keeps location data closer to the belt, the company maintains the right to use that information data for targeted ads. Amazon says it may use the Echo Dot Kids Edition to come up with personalized shopping recommendations for children.

It’s an especially bad holiday seasons for kids’ privacy, especially when it comes to smart watches. Mozilla looked at four different smart watches marketed to children, which include GPS trackers, cameras and microphones. All four earned Mozilla’s privacy warning. The Verizon Gizmo Watch was especially concerning, as it collects data including your kid’s name, age, gender, email address, text messages and more as their communications are routed through the device.

As tech giants buy up more small companies, privacy problems around holiday tech gifts multiply. For example, Amazon is in the midst of buying Roomba manufacturer iRobot, a company who’s products previously received a “Best Of” designation for above average privacy practices. Google purchased FitBit in 2021, and the company announced that users will soon have to make Google accounts if they want to keep using FitBit products

Mozilla’s findings aren’t all bad news, though. The company found a few products that deserve credit for treating your data with more respect. Garmin turns on privacy features by default for its smart watches and fitness trackers. Sonos actually rolled out its own voice assistant with some privacy protections. Unlike Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, the Sonos voice helper process all your voice data right on your device without sending the data to corporate servers.

The Privacy Not Included shopping for information options much more merchandise as properly. Mozilla launched the info base again in 2017, and there’s info on lots of of merchandise and apps you’ll be able to lookup. You can see all of it on the Privacy Not Included website.