Is your air fryer spying on you? Concerns over ‘excessive’ surveillance in smart devices | Smart homes

Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers “stuffed with trackers” are among examples of smart devices engaged in “excessive” surveillance, according to the consumer group Which?

The organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple of British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user’s phone through a connected app.

Smart air fryers allow cooks to schedule their meal to start cooking before they get home. Not all air fryers have such functionality but those that do often use an app installed on a smartphone.

Which? found the app provided by the company Xiaomi connected to trackers for Facebook and a TikTok ad network. The Xiaomi fryer and another by Aigostar sent people’s personal data to servers in China, although this was flagged in the privacy notice, the consumer testing body found.

Its tests also examined smartwatches that it said required “risky” phone permissions – in other words giving invasive access to the consumer’s phone through location tracking, audio recording and accessing stored files.

Which? found digital speakers that were preloaded with trackers for Facebook, Google and a digital marketing company called Urbanairship.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the latest consumer tests “show that many products not only fail to meet our expectations for data protection but also consumer expectations”.

The ICO, the UK’s independent regulator for data protection and information rights law, is drawing up new guidance for manufacturers of smart products to be published in spring 2025. It is due to outline clear expectations for what they need to do to comply with data protection laws and protect people using smart products.

Harry Rose, the editor of Which? magazine, claimed smart tech manufacturers were collecting data with little or no transparency and called for the ICO’s code to “be backed by effective enforcement, including against companies that operate abroad”.

In a response to Which?, Xiaomi said respecting user privacy was among its core values and it adhered to UK data protection laws. “We do not sell any personal information to third parties,” it said. “The permission to record audio on Xiaomi Home app is not applicable to Xiaomi smart air fryer which does not operate directly through voice commands and video chat.”

Aigostar was approached for comment.

A growing number of devices in homes are connected to the internet, including camera-enabled doorbells and smart TVs.

Last Black Friday, the ICO encouraged consumers to check if smart products they planned to buy had a physical switch to prevent the gathering of voice data. It encouraged people to “be picky about who gets your data” and to realise that some of the data sharing that products encouraged during setup was not necessary for the product to work.