Big tech and governments are monitoring and recording your eating activities. c/Privacy provides tips and tricks to protect your privacy against global surveillance.
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Beings such as EMO Pet Robot, Anki's Cosmo and Vector, Elik, PlantsIO... I wonder if they have spyware.
you mean the things with cameras and microphones that are designed for children and offload all computation to data centers in china?
if they don't now, they 100% will.
Yes.
Source?
Common sense
Not everything needs a source right, if you can just investigate and confirm yourself?
Does it have a camera or mic? Yes
Do you have absolute control over how the data captures is managed?
If the answer is no, then it is capable of spying on you.
Any device in your house that has a network connection and requires an online account is spying on you, full stop. The question is how much.
If it was provided an internet connection during set up or has a companion app on your phone, yes.
Anything with a camera or microphone is safe, until it is networked. After that there are multiple routes to exfiltrate data or update the device so it starts doing so on its own.
Even if it does not get wifi, but you have to interact with the device through an app, your phone just does the heavy lifiting then.
This is the reason for most people who are concerned about privacy and the trends of increased data collection, cheap IOT devices are verboten.
yes, all of it
/thread
Probubbly is usually the anwser, unless you build it yourself, assume it does.
The AI itself is spyware itself, IMO. So my answer is a huge yes.
Is it spyware if it has no mechanism to phone home? Full disclosure: I don’t know if these do in fact have that capability.
That is also another reason why I don't trust those things. Majority of them are from companies you've never heard of and therefore cannot fully verify if they don't, unless you know what to look for. At least with known brands you know you are being screwed over and people have probably found a way to try and mitigate it, or are at least trying to find a way to do it.
There's a quote I heard a few years ago: everyone is a technology company now and the game they're playing is recurring revenue stream. If it's cloud connected then pretty much assume they are going to find a way to monetize and profit from your information.
There's no reason they wouldn't be. Companies make these kinds of unnecessarily internet connected/AI enabled devices for the purpose of collecting metrics and training data. Any enjoyment the end user gets out of it is purely incidental.
Roombas map your house and collect information about it's contents, Alexa is recording you as often as it possibly can, and I don't see how these could be any different.
"The purpose of a system is what it does"
I make the assumption that anything internet connected that I don't control the server to can and probably will become a security/spyware nightmare. If you really want a robot friend though, there is https://github.com/kercre123/wire-pod for the Anki Vector
If it's made by a corporation...assume yes.
Yes.
Privacy Review: Toys Report - Mozilla Foundation - https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-personal/toys-data-security-safety-report-2025/
Are your kids' smart toys spying on them? What parents should know - https://komonews.com/news/consumer/children-kids-smart-toys-are-they-spying-on-them-artificial-intelligence-ai-bluetooth-devices-connection-data-us-pirg-education-fund-market-research-science-parenting-advice-toyland-nanny-cams-hidden-cameras-microphones-privacy-security
Security Flaw at AI Toy Company Exposed Over 50,000 Chat Logs of Kids | PCMag - https://www.pcmag.com/news/security-flaw-at-ai-toy-company-exposed-over-50000-chat-logs-of-kids
AI Toy Maker Exposes Children's Conversations in Data Breach - OECD.AI - https://oecd.ai/en/incidents/2026-02-12-ce4b