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Police investigating the 2016 rape and murder of a 19-year-old medical student were unable to search the iPhone of suspect Hussein Khavari, an Afghan refugee who declined to give them his password. The investigators gained access to the phone via a private company in Munich, and went through Apple's health app data to discern what kinds of activities Khavari participated in on the day of the murder. The app identified the bulk of his activity as "climbing stairs". An investigator of similar…
Content Type: Examples
The French data protection regulator, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), has issued a formal notice to Genesis Industries Limited, the maker of the connected toys My Friend Cayla and I-QUE. Genesis has two months to bring the toys into compliance with data protection law. CNIL says that based on the security flaws found by a consumer association (presumably the Norwegian Consumer Council, which did this work in 2016) its chair decided to perform online…
Content Type: Examples
Recognising that many parents will be considering purchasing connected toys and other devices for their children, for Christmas 2017 the UK's Information Commissioner's Office issued a list of 12 guidelines for assessing products before purchasing. These include: research the product's security before buying; watch out for online shopping fraud; plan ahead to study the product's security and privacy options; change default user names and passwords; ensure your home router is security; use two-…
Content Type: Examples
Owners of the Hong Kong-based sex toy company Lovense's vibrators who installed the company's remote control app were surprised to discover that the app was recording user sessions without their knowledge. They had authorised the app to use the phone's built-in microphone and camera, but only for use within the app's built-in chat function and to send voice clips on command. Lovense says that no data was sent to its servers, and that the audio files users have found stored on their phones are…
Content Type: Examples
The UK consumer watchdog Which? has called on retailers to stop selling popular connected toys it says have proven security issues. These include Hasbro's Furby Connect, Vivid Imagination's I-Que robot, and Spiral Toys' Cloudpets and Toy-fi Teddy. In its report, Which? found that these toys do not require authentication to link to other devices via Bluetooth, meaning that any device within range could connect to the toys and take control of them or send messages. Spiral Toys did not comment.…
Content Type: Examples
Privacy and child advocacy groups in the US, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and the UK are filing complaints with regulators after a study by the Norwegian Consumer Council found critical security flaws and missing privacy protection in children's smartwatches. The watches, which are functionally essentially wearable smartphones, are intended to help parents keep an eye on their children. However, the NCC's research found that they can be easily taken over by strangers and…
Content Type: Examples
In 2017, after protests from children's health and privacy advocates, Mattel cancelled its planned child-focused "Aristotle" smart hub. Aristotle was designed to adapt to and learn about the child as they grew while controlling devices from night lights to homework aids. However, Aristotle was only one of many tech devices being released onto the market to take over functions that have traditionally been part of the intimate relationship between children and their parents: a smart cradle that…
Content Type: Examples
A report from the University of Washington studies parents' and children's interactions with general-purpose connected devices and connected toys. There are numerous privacy issues: toy companies may collect masses of children's intimate data; the toys may enable parents to spy on their children, and criminals hacking these systems may be able to identify and locate the children. For example, the 2015 cyber attack on VTech, a children's tablet maker, exposed the personal data of 5 million…
Content Type: Examples
The "couples vibrator" We-Vibe 4 Plus is controlled via a smartphone app connected to the device via Bluetooth. In 2016, researchers revealed at Defcon that the devices uses its internet connectivity to send information back to its manufacturer including the device's temperature, measured every minute, and vibration level, whenever a user changes it. Based on that information, the manufacturer, Standard Innovations Corporation, can work out deeply intimate information about device users. The…
Content Type: Examples
Many people fail to recognise the sensitivity of the data collected by fitness tracking devices, focusing instead on the messages and photographs collected by mobile phone apps and social media. Increasingly, however, researchers are finding that the data collected by these trackers - seemingly benign information such as steps taken and heart rate - can be highly revealing of such intimate information as sexual dysfunction. In one Swedish study in 2015, researchers found a correlation between…
Content Type: Examples
In 2016, Verbraucherzentrale NRW, a consumer protection organisation in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia accused Samsung of harvesting data and sending it back to the company over the internet without informing users as soon as its smart televisions are connected to the internet. The complaint specifies the model UE40H6270. The group wants Samsung to default to an anonymous setting rather than transmit information including the show being watched, the time of date, and the user's IP…
Content Type: Examples
In 2016, when security expert Matthew Garrett stayed in a London hotel where the light switches had been replaced by Android tablets, it took him only a few hours to gain access to all of the room's electronics. The steps he followed: plug his laptop into a link in place of one of the tablets; set up a transparent bridge; analyse the data traffic with WireShark to identify the protocol in use; then exploit that protocol. That protocol was Modbus, an old protocol with no authentication. Once…
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In 2015, ABI Research discovered that the power light on the front of Alphabet's Nest Cam was deceptive: even when users had used the associated app to power down the camera and the power light went off, the device continued to monitor its surroundings, noting sound, movement, and other activities. The proof lay in the fact that the device's power drain diminished by an amount consistent with only turning off the LED light. Alphabet explained the reason was that the camera had to be ready to be…
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In June 2016, National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett told a conference on military technology conference that the agency was researching whether internet-connected biomedical devices such as pacemakers could be used to collect foreign intelligence. Ledgett identified the complexity of the Internet of Things as both a security nightmare and an opportunity for signals intelligence. However, the NSA prioritises its resources by focusing solely on technology used by its opponents…
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The news that connected TVs and set-top boxes were listening in on their owners' conversations led the state of California to pass legislation (AB1116) prohibiting companies from operating a voice recognition feature without prominently informing the user or installer during initial setup. In addition, the bill bars manufacturers and third parties from using recordings of spoken words "collected through the operation of a voice recognition feature" in order to improve their voice recognition or…
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A 2009 paper by the US National Academy of Sciences found that among forensic methods only DNA can reliably and consistency match evidence to specific individuals or sources. While it's commonly understood that techniques such as analysis of blood spatter patterns are up for debate, other types of visual evidence have been more readily accepted. In 2015 the FBI announced that virtually all of its hair analysis testing was scientifically indefensible, and in 2016 the Texas Forensic Science…
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A US House of Representatives oversight committee was told in March 2017 that photographs of about half of the adult US population are stored in facial recognition databases that can be accessed by the FBI without their knowledge or consent. In addition, about 80% of the photos in the FBI's network are of non-criminals and come from sources such as passports. Eighteen states supply driver's licences under arrangement with the FBI. In response, privacy advocates and politicians called for…
Content Type: Examples
Connecticut police have used the data collected by a murder victim's Fitbit to question her husband's alibi. Richard Dabate, accused of killing his wife in 2015, claimed a masked assailant came into the couple's home and used pressure points to subdue him before shooting his wife, Connie. However, her Fitbit's data acts as a "digital footprint", showing she continued to move around for more than an hour after the shooting took place. A 2015 report from the National Institute of…
Content Type: Examples
Even after they move out, domestic abusers may retain control over their former residence via Internet of Things devices and the mobile phone apps that control them. Using those tools, abusers can confuse, intimidate, and spy upon their former spouses and partners. Lack of knowledge about how these technologies work means that those who complain are often not taken seriously. Even the victims themselves may believe it's all in their minds; lawyers are struggling to develop language to add to…
Content Type: Examples
A 2017 lawsuit filed by Chicagoan Kyle Zak against Bose Corp alleges that the company uses the Bose Connect app associated with its high-end Q35 wireless headphones to spy on its customers, tracking the music, podcasts, and other audio they listen to and then violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission. The case reflects many of the concerns associated with Internet of Things devices, which frequently arrive with shoddy security or dubious data…