Recent research has indicated that connected home devices, such as smart air-fryers, may be sharing our data with third parties.

A study from ‘Which?’, a subsidiary of the Consumer's Association in the UK, found that some air fryers were sending users' personal data to servers in China.

Irish Times technology journalist Ciara O'Brien told Moncrieff that some smart appliances collect beyond the minimum amount of information required to function.

Ms O'Brien said some smart appliances may request access to your camera, your microphone or your location.

She said this is where things can get "murky”.

Microphone permissions

If you are buying a smart home device, Ms O'Brien recommends looking at the requested permissions when you download the app.

"If you say no, and you find you can't use your air fryer without it accessing your microphone, I would question the value of that appliance," she said.

Ms O'Brien said many smart devices rely on third party services such as Google or Alexa for voice commands.

"You can actually just talk to your smart speaker and your smart speaker will do all the work, so the actual appliance itself doesn’t need access to your microphone," she said.

Ms O'Brien said users can refuse permissions when installing an app, and if they've accidentally accepted them, they can revoke permissions in their settings.

Privacy policies

Ms O'Brien also advised paying attention to privacy policies, as they include information on how your data is processed.

"A quick way around this is to pull up the policy on your phone and do a quick search for keywords," she said.

"I usually search for servers, trackers, location data, and that will highlight within that private policy the key things you need to know.

"[This includes] what they’re doing with your data, where are they sending it to, what kind of trackers do they have, what kind of trackers are they sharing with.” 

Ms O'Brien said it's also important to not ignore changes to a privacy policy.

"If you’ve signed up to something and they send you an email saying that they’re changing their privacy policy, don’t just delete the email, read it, and see what they’re actually changing," she said.

Ms O'Brien said that GDPR offers some protection against data breaches, however this is dependent on companies adhering to the policy.

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