When Facebook started out, most Americans thought they were getting a free service to help them connect with family and friends and that Facebook would be funded by the advertisements on their computer screens. Almost no one understood that their private information was being used to create detailed personal profiles that tracked virtually everything — where they live, who their friends are, what they like and dislike, where they shop, what products they buy, what news or events interest them, and what their political views are. Monetizing each of its users is how Facebook became a billion dollar business. But very few understood that they were, in fact, the product being sold and monetized when they signed up.
We are about to see this same phenomena on replay when it comes to new high tech home security systems. But this time it will be on steroids — because firms like Amazon will have access to a lot more than just the things we chose to post online. Products like Ring are able to store this information and it can be accessed months or years later.
They will have microphones and cameras in and around our homes. They could conceivably have access to the most intensely private and personal information and even have video and photos and sound files with our voices from inside and around our homes. How will this valuable private data be used?
These security firms store this information and it can be accessed months or years later. The question is — accessed by whom and for what purposes? If past experience is any indicator, your private information will be available to whomever is willing to pay for it, and for whatever purpose generates income. But you’re not being told that when you buy these new products.
In the past, home security systems, used high tech solutions to monitor doors and windows and glass breakage and smoke to notify you and/or to call 911 when there was a break in or a fire. But they were not collecting your private information. They were not recording your conversations. They were not recording video inside your home or even who might be coming and going from your home. But all that is changing. The new frontier in home security appears to be the Facebook model — make the client the product that the company is actually selling, but don’t make that clear up front.
Many firms have used high tech automation to lower monitoring costs, and some offer lower prices because they will make it back the same way Facebook did. If you thought Facebook was gathering information about you and your family, wait until you see what they and others can do with your private conversations in the most intimate settings at the front door and within your home.
With devices in our homes that listen to our voice so that they can turn on or off lights or adjust temperatures or turn on the television, or a hundred other things, we now know that employees who listen to the devices have held parties where they all share the most embarrassing or strange events that they’ve overheard. Simply stated, employees have saved and replayed private conversations that were recorded in our homes and used them for their personal amusement. I’m pretty confident that wasn’t in the “User Agreement.” So we have to understand the potential for abuse of our private information is real and, in fact, likely.
If consumers want security services that record voice and video in and around their home, they have the right to choose that. But to be a real choice, there must be a full and complete disclosure in plain English and there must be real legal accountability for violations of the agreement.
We cannot make an informed decision when the marketing of these devices suggests that they are simply a lower cost, higher tech home security solution. That’s deceptive and it is designed to mislead consumers and lull them into a false sense that their privacy isn’t at risk.
We have the right to know what private information, voice recordings, photos and video are being recorded and stored. How will that information be used? Will it be sold? Will it be used at employee parties to get a laugh? Who has access to your private and intimate data? If you talk about something in the privacy of your bedroom, will you begin receiving push advertisements on that exact topic?
Policymakers should create clear standards that allow consumers to make informed choices. Consumers have every right to invite companies and their employees into their private lives. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise to them what the real deal is. Disclosure allows Americans to decide if they want a home security system or if they want to invite a large corporation into their home to surveil them so that they can expand their profits.