No one is a hero to their toaster (Image: Nick Veasey/Getty)
A smart toothbrush that tells you how you are brushing. A thermostat that lets you control the temperature of your home when you are out. A slow cooker that alerts you when dinner is ready.
More and more of our gadgets are connecting to the internet, letting us interact with our homes from afar. They promise to save us money and improve our health. But are they opening the door to third parties like power companies and Google? If so, the secrets of the home may not be secret for much longer.
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鈥淢ore and more domestic appliances are vying for data about your home鈥�
鈥淲ith a smart system, the whole point is that when you use it, it learns about you over time,鈥� says of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, who designs smart home gadgets. 鈥淭hat learning intrinsically involves some sort of logging.鈥�
This is essential for the device鈥檚 makers to provide the brains behind the service, which may depend on artificial intelligence running on servers on the other side of the world. It鈥檚 an area fraught with privacy issues, says Scott.
The list of domestic appliances now vying for data about your home life is expanding considerably. Google鈥檚 Project Tango, for example, allows smartphones to scan indoor environments, potentially allowing developers to build up a database of 鈥� including our homes. All data also goes to Google, of course.
鈥淭he reality of the home as a private place is being overturned,鈥� says Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group based in San Francisco. 鈥淏ut our sense of it as private may not be.鈥�
This, he explains, is where the danger lies 鈥� a false sense of privacy. Homes may become less and less private, but their occupants aren鈥檛 necessarily aware of this and so aren鈥檛 disposed to change their behaviour when inside them.
And why should we? Much depends on who is doing the watching. Early adopters of smart home tech may be the elderly. Devices that monitor and learn a person鈥檚 normal routine, then raise an alarm as soon as they detect something unusual, could let people live in their own home for longer. Greenpeak鈥檚 鈥淪enior Lifestyle System鈥� in their home with younger members of their family, for example. For some, losing a little privacy might be worth it if it means keeping their independence for longer.
Not all systems are targeted at the elderly. Xetal鈥檚 MoCa uses wall mounted devices to tell homeowners how many people are in each room. The system also tracks inhabitants鈥� movements, revealing when they are out or watching TV.
The concern is that smart homes will provide companies with yet another means to snoop. Devices that monitor energy usage in our homes could be used to build up a profile of who lives there. Peaks in energy consumption might show which religious festivals they observed, for example. It is even possible to detect when a washing machine is on rather than the TV since they have different energy signatures. And researchers have shown that energy signatures can even be used to tell what film was being watched.
We may need to get used to the idea of no longer being home alone.
Read more: 鈥�The secret life of your home鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚s your toaster spying on you?鈥�
