Insecure Robot Vacuums From Chinese Company Deebot Collect Photos and Audio to Train Their AI

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this report from Australia's public broadcaster ABC:Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings - taken inside customers' houses - to train the company's AI models. The Chinese home robotics company, which sells a range of popular Deebot models in Australia, said its users are "willingly participating" in a product improvement program. When users opt into this program through the Ecovacs smartphone app, they are not told what data will be collected, only that it will "help us strengthen the improvement of product functions and attached quality". Users are instructed to click "above" to read the specifics, however there is no link available on that page. Ecovacs's privacy policy - available elsewhere in the app - allows for blanket collection of user data for research purposes, including: - The 2D or 3D map of the user's house generated by the device- Voice recordings from the device's microphone - Photos or videos recorded by the device's camera "It also states that voice recordings, videos and photos that are deleted via the app may continue to be held and used by Ecovacs..."

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