When we think about the smart devices that make up our smart home, we can think of television, Alexa, or even a refrigerator. We rarely include the air fryer on the list, because at least in appearance, its function is simpler and simpler and therefore it is much less sophisticated than other technologies. That is why we were surprised when we began to know how much data these kitchen robots are capable of collecting.
As the British consumer association Which? points out, air fryers are not innocent when it comes to security and privacy. In addition, these robots often use a mobile application as a complement to carry out their tasks.
According to a study carried out by said organization, “in the air fryer category, in addition to knowing the precise location of customers, the three products asked for permission to record audio on the user’s phone, for no specific reason.”
They studied models of Xiaomi air fryers, and found that the Xiaomi mobile app linked to the air fryer connects to trackers from “Facebook, Pangle (the TikTok for Business advertising network) and the Chinese tech giant Tencent (depending on the user location).
Likewise, the Aigostar brand air fryer asks for gender and date of birth when setting up a user account, although this is an optional step. The fryers of both brands send this data to servers in China, although this is included in their privacy notices.
That is to say, air fryers, although they may not appear to be because they are not video or sound devices, also capture a lot of data, especially if they are connected to your phone through an app. Normally, this data will be used for advertising purposes, or to develop usage profiles that serve as market intelligence for the brand.
Some very specific data
All the devices included in the study, which not only analyzed air fryers but also many other appliances such as speakers or televisions, request access to the location of the device, for reasons that are not clear. For the consumer association, this highlights that “manufacturers are currently able to collect excessive data from consumers, often with little transparency about what it will be used for.”
In a statement from Xiaomi, collected by Which?, the Chinese company indicates: “The permission to record audio in the Xiaomi Home application is not applicable to the Xiaomi smart air fryer, which does not work directly through voice and chat commands. “video”.
All of this reminds us that, no matter how difficult it may be, it is also important to read the data policies that we subscribe to when using air fryer mobile apps, and review the permissions that we grant them on our mobile phone so as not to provide more information than is essential. , especially when many of the features that require them are actually optional.
