Insecure Deebot robot vacuums collect photos and audio to train AI
Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings – taken inside customers' houses – to train the company's AI models.
The Chinese home robotics company, which sells a range of popular Deebot models in Australia, said its users are "willingly participating" in a product improvement program.
When users opt into this program through the Ecovacs smartphone app, they are not told what data will be collected, only that it will "help us strengthen the improvement of product functions and attached quality".
Ecovacs's privacy policy – available elsewhere in the app – allows for blanket collection of user data for research purposes, including:
It also states that voice recordings, videos and photos that are deleted via the app may continue to be held and used by Ecovacs.
