<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/15/robot-vacuum-with-remote-access-flaw-is-collecting-photos-videos-and-audio-of-users-to-train-companys-ai-models/>
"As far back as 2017,
Techdirt was warning that robot vacuum cleaners
represented a threat to privacy. In that instance, it concerned the possibility
that iRobot, makers of the robot vacuum Roomba, might sell the data that its
device collected about the size and layout of a home. Five years later, it was
becoming clear that a new danger was emerging because robot vacuums were
starting to incorporate cameras. These are the kind of images a system could
gather, as reported by
MIT Technology Review in 2022:
The photos vary in type and in sensitivity. The most intimate image we saw
was the series of video stills featuring the young woman on the toilet, her
face blocked in the lead image but unobscured in the grainy scroll of shots
below. In another image, a boy who appears to be eight or nine years old,
and whose face is clearly visible, is sprawled on his stomach across a
hallway floor. A triangular flop of hair spills across his forehead as he
stares, with apparent amusement, at the object recording him from just below
eye level.
At that point, the images were taken by a development version, not a consumer
product. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that used contract workers
to label data for companies like iRobot. But the
MIT Technology Review
article presciently noted:
Ultimately, though, this set of images represents something bigger than any
one individual company’s actions. They speak to the widespread, and growing,
practice of sharing potentially sensitive data to train algorithms"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
