Illustration: Umang Sawkar

Artificial intelligence technologies have been infiltrating every aspect of our lives, providing our home appliances with impressive new features—think of voice assistants, remote communication, and smart tracking sensors. As a result, our smart gadgets can now learn our habits and preferences, creating a seamless, personalized experience. Appliances like washing machines, refrigerators, smart displays, and even air fryers have become an essential part of our modern kitchens, making life smoother and more efficient than ever.

Welcome to the Era of Smart Home Appliances

Home appliances have come a long way; turning from simple, manual tools into intelligent AI-powered devices. While traditional appliances still get the job done, smart technology has completely changed the way we use and interact with them. Home appliances have turned into smart devices that save time and effort and are equipped with the ability to connect to them via the Internet and control them via applications installed on smartphones. This transformation witnessed in its functions was accompanied by new challenges that emerged in terms of security and privacy.

How can smart home appliances spy on us?

The smart air fryer may be one of the home gadgets that everyone wishes to have, as it provides us with a seamless cooking experience and allows us to quickly prepare delicious dishes claimed to be healthy. It also enables home-prepared meal lovers to schedule the fryer at a specific time so it can start preparing and cooking their food even before they are home, through linking the fryer to an application installed on their smartphones. But even the best smart air fryers may have a dark side, and they may betray your trust and turn into a spy violating your privacy and divulging information about you!

Some AI-based air fryers are equipped with online control, and they use Wi-Fi networks and smartphone applications, so they can record cooking habits, times for using and turning off the fryer. Although collecting such data may be for the purpose of improving the user experience and providing cooking suggestions, however, the problem lies in the way such data are exploited, especially if it falls into unsafe hands or is hacked, as happened previously during the wireless pager devices in Lebanon.

Hacking Threat: Can a fryer reveal our home secrets?

Smart air fryers rely on internet connectivity and tracking devices to operate, making them vulnerable to electronic hacking like any other smart device. If it is hacked, hackers may be able to access information about the device’s on and off times, which may reveal the presence or absence of people at home, giving hackers the opportunity to spy on users’ daily lives, learn a lot about their habits, and violate their privacy for their own gains.

Meanwhile, a report recently issued by the British Consumer Group “Which?” and published in “The Guardian” newspaper revealed growing concerns over the excessive surveillance functions widely available in smart devices, indicating that everyday home devices such as watches, speakers, and even air fryers are full of tracking software.

More surprisingly, the “Aigostar” air fryer requests the users to optionally enter information related to gender and date of birth when setting up their accounts, according to the “Daily Mail” newspaper.

“Which?” Group confirmed that air fryers manufactured by companies such as “Xiaomi” and “Aigostar” send users’ personal data back to servers in China, and this is explained in their privacy notices, but few users care to read them. “Our research shows how smart tech manufacturers and the firms they work with are currently able to collect data from consumers, seemingly with reckless abandon, and this is often done with little or no transparency,” confirmed Harry Rose, Editor at “Which?” Magazine.

The UK’s independent regulator for data protection and information rights law, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) stated that the latest consumer tests show that many products not only fail to meet our expectations for data protection but also consumer expectations, confirming it is drawing up new guidance for manufacturers of smart products to be published in spring 2025. This is due to outlined clear expectations for what they need to do to comply with data protection laws and protect people using smart products.

Phone Apps: Another Trap

Smart air fryers use applications installed on users’ mobile phones to enable them to control these appliances remotely. As a part of their working mechanism, these applications request permissions to access the phone, including permissions to access geographical location, call history, or even contact list, which has nothing to do with the nature of the fryer function.

Once these permissions are granted, the application turns into another portal to spy on the user, exposing his privacy to further risks.

How do we protect ourselves?

Experts recommend a number of steps to secure smart home devices, including:

1- Updating the installed applications and programs constantly to ensure using the latest protection technologies.

2- Using a strong password to protect your home Wi-Fi network to eliminate the possibility of being hacked.

3- Reducing the permissions granted to applications, and ensuring the permissions granted to applications are consistent with performing their actual function.

4- Checking app reviews and user ratings. This may help you identify any potential privacy or security issues.

5- Turn smart home devices off and disconnect them from the Internet when not in use to ensure no hacker can access your data.

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