Smart home can become a privacy thief, enjoy convenience and enhance the sense of protection

In the blink of an eye, smart home has become a privacy thief?

When you and your friends have just finished discussing the new clothing styles, the next second you open the smart speaker App on your phone, and you will see the relevant product information push; The smart camera, which was originally used to take care of the elderly or children, has become a "window" for strangers to spy on the privacy of their homes... These seemingly incredible, movie-like cases are becoming reality. With the increasing prevalence of connected devices, smart home products bring comfort and convenience to consumers, but also pose a threat to consumer data security and privacy protection. According to incomplete statistics from the New Express reporter, from June to October this year alone, 5 smart home apps were notified or taken off the shelves. How manufacturers and individuals protect data security has become the focus of industry development.

Smart homes are collecting privacy data more frequently

In recent years, smart door locks, smart cameras and other smart products have accelerated into thousands of households, promoting the continuous expansion of the smart home market. According to data from CSHIA and China Industrial Research Institute, the scale of China's smart home market has increased significantly from 325.47 billion yuan in 2017 to 651.56 billion yuan in 2022. It is expected that in 2023, the market size will further increase to 715.71 billion yuan.

On the other hand, consumers are paying more and more attention to data security and privacy protection. "Continuously improving the level of information security will be a major trend in the development of the smart home industry in mainland China." In the "Panorama of China's Smart Home Industry in 2023", the Prospective Industry Research Institute pointed out that the rapid popularization of smart home products and the continuous enrichment of application scenarios have brought convenience to family life and also brought information security issues to the surface. On the one hand, after smart home devices change from traditional contact control to remote network control, network security threats have increased. On the other hand, smart home devices interact frequently with the cloud, other smart devices, and consumers, collecting and storing a large amount of consumer information, and the risk of information leakage increases.

"Smart home is different from traditional home products, and the real beginning of connection and service is when users are powered on and used online." Wang Shengyang, executive secretary general of the CSHIA Smart Home Industry Alliance, said in an interview with the New Express reporter that in this process, the protection of relevant user data, especially sensitive privacy data involving images, voice, and usage habits, is becoming increasingly important. The application of smart cameras, smart video locks, smart microwave sensors and other devices is becoming more extensive, and the collection of users' face recognition, cloud information storage, and health information is becoming more frequent in scenarios such as smart sleep, smart health care, and smart care.

There are three issues that users are concerned about

According to industry insiders, in the actual use process, smart home manufacturers usually need to use the personal information collected when interacting with users as the basis for realizing functions and services, and these data will be transmitted to cloud storage for analysis, and can be shared with third-party companies for marketing and research purposes. Vendors hope to use this data to explore the deep needs of users, and at the same time, it may bring potential risks, including excessive collection of personal data such as users' names, addresses, and payment information, as well as data leakage caused by hacking.

According to incomplete statistics from the New Express reporter, from June to October this year alone, 5 smart home apps were notified or taken off the shelves. Among them, due to the illegal collection and use of personal information, and the failure to rectify as required, the App "Yeelight", a well-known domestic lighting company, was recently required to be removed from the shelves by the Shandong Provincial Communications Administration. In September, the Guangdong Provincial Communications Administration publicly notified 25 apps that had not completed rectification as required, among which the "smart bedding" app developed by Shenzhen Meiya Industrial Development Co., Ltd. was on the "black list" for collecting personal information in violation of regulations. In August, the "Jiulian Smart Doorbell" developed by Guangdong Jiulian Technology Co., Ltd. was also notified to be removed from the shelves due to problems such as illegal collection of personal information and difficulty in account cancellation.

Liu Yun, a senior analyst at IDC China, told the New Express reporter that in the use of smart home devices, users have a variety of concerns about privacy and security, among which personal information is collected without permission, equipment collects information that users are unwilling to share, and user information is shared or sold to other companies are three issues that users are more worried about.

However, despite concerns about data protection and privacy, many consumers are still not very aware of the user information collected by smart home manufacturers, and most are unclear about what personal information manufacturers collect, how long it will be stored, and where it will be used. There are even consumers who say that they have little or no review of their device's data privacy policy.

Recently, the New Express reporter randomly checked the data privacy policies of 5 smart home apps on the market and found that these devices usually collect various interactive information from users, including but not limited to the user's personal basic information, as well as biometric information such as voice, face, fingerprint, voiceprint, iris, etc.; At the same time, some information that is not personal information will also be recorded, including records of the user's operation behavior, such as clicks, page jumps, browsing times, etc. In addition, different categories of smart products also have a variety of specific data collection content, for example, sweeping robots may collect users' home maps, room scenes, user images, etc.

It is worth noting that there are still missing or blank terms in some aspects of smart home products. For example, for special groups such as the elderly and minors, how to truly implement personal information protection mechanisms such as notification and consent; In the event of a change, merger, bankruptcy, etc., how to dispose of the user's personal information; In the face of personal information leakage, damage, loss and other incidents, whether the enterprise has corresponding measures, etc. The data privacy policy of smart home products does not have an accurate answer to the above questions, and the scenario of "one question and three unknowns" is happening on the consumer side. When the New Express reporter asked questions such as "what personal information will be collected by the application" as a consumer, the customer service of many manufacturers avoided asking or emphasized that there was no problem with the use of the product.

Enjoy convenience while strengthening privacy protection

So, how can vendors balance information collection and privacy protection to complete data collection while providing users with peace of mind?

In this regard, Liu Yun believes that on the one hand, the smart home platform can optimize the relationship between privacy protection and service efficiency through data stratification, and improve the protection level of data with high privacy relevance such as identity recognition and activation and wake-up or process it locally. On the other hand, the processing capacity of the current smart home terminal equipment itself is also improving, and the upgrade of local computing and storage capabilities enables the needs of interactive control and identity recognition to be realized locally, so as to better protect user privacy.

Wang Shengyang holds a similar view, he believes that smart cameras, smart door locks, smart doors, smart speakers and other security attributes have been strengthened, and have gradually become new elements of competition that go hand in hand with product software and hardware capabilities, installation service capabilities, and manufacturing capabilities. Therefore, the opening of relevant user permissions must comply with relevant national laws and regulations. At the same time, manufacturers should solve the localization scenario deployment to ensure that the network can still run locally in the offline network disconnection state, and even ensure the personal and property safety of users in the event of a power failure.

Industry insiders believe that the protection of user information should not only further improve relevant policies and regulations, but also require platform parties, equipment vendors, operators, service providers and other links to build a more rigorous security mechanism. While enjoying the convenience of smart life, consumers need to enhance their awareness of self-protection and consider safety as an important selection factor.

In the process of use, consumers can take corresponding measures to avoid risks, and strengthen personal privacy protection while enjoying the convenience provided by smart home products. For example, regularly review the permissions of smart devices to understand how well they collect and share information; Improve home network security by using strong passwords and enabling two-factor authentication whenever possible; Update the new version of the system and upgrade the firmware provided by the manufacturer in a timely manner, so as to strengthen the "security door" of the smart device; Be cautious about granting third-party apps access to smart devices; Use a physical switch or mute button to minimize the possibility of active listening by the device, etc.

Written by: New Express reporter Liang Ruxin