Amazon wants to buy the vacuum robot manufacturer iRobot – the IT giant would pay $1.7 billion for that. Security experts around the world are throwing their hands over their heads.
Internet giant Amazon wants to expand its range of smart household helpers. The group plans to take over the vacuum robot manufacturer iRobot for 1.7 billion US dollars – provided that it is officially permitted. This would mean that all Roomba brand products would belong to Amazon in the future. But Amazon would get more than just numerous new devices that can be discounted on Prime Day – because iRobot is sitting on your data treasure, which Amazon will probably raise.
We are talking about exact floor plans for all customers, who let a suitably equipped robot drive through the apartments and houses. This ranges from simple maps that are created using a laser to very precise recordings that models such as the Roomba J7 record with a camera.
Cameras are used for cleaning – but not only
Officially, the cameras are used for the cleaning itself – because the improved detection of obstacles enables optimized navigation and thus more efficient working methods. For analysis purposes, the robot also sends the recordings to the manufacturer – and that arouses desire.
iRobot has made no secret of this for years. Already in 2017 it was said in one interview with “Reuters”, they plan to share the card data with third parties – if the customer agrees. CEO Colin Angle said at the time: “There’s a whole ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can provide once you have a comprehensive map of the home that the user has shared.”
Researcher Ron Knox labeled the deal via Twitter therefore recently as the “most dangerous, most threatening takeover in Amazon history” and as a “nightmare”. In theory, Amazon could expand the data that has already been collected by devices such as the Echo Spot or other Alexa devices with a camera using the vacuum cleaner’s cards.
The resulting data set would be gigantic. And always up-to-date – because a vacuum robot remembers when furniture changes, carpets have been laid or other changes in the living situation occur. The office recently became a children’s room? Amazon would know that – and very quickly. A godsend for target group-oriented advertising.
“Whoever knows our most private things has power over us”
Caroline Krohn, Green Party politician and founder of the AG Sustainable Digitization. In conversation with the star she explains: “We all have to be aware that every company that we give our data to can potentially engage in misuse. No matter how trustworthy it seems to us – at the latest when a company is sold we can no longer control what happened to our data.”
In the case of one’s own home, this means, according to Krohn: “When our home is measured, our most personal area is measured. If we cannot see who knows how much about us, then we also do not know how this knowledge is used to describe us in the worst case, to manipulate and damage it. Whoever knows our private sphere has power over us. Whoever has power over us attacks our self-determination. That’s why no company should draw any knowledge from our private sphere and certainly not sell this knowledge.”
Is personal data protection even possible?
This gives rise to the question of what data protection is like when you buy a product from a brand that collects data – let’s say to improve services or functionality – but then someone like Amazon comes and accesses it. At this point, the IT security expert criticizes: “Today, we are far from having sufficient legal enforcement to prevent the transfer of data in a company transaction. Often, databases are the reason for companies to buy other companies. It is extremely dangerous that data do not disappear; they are always there and can always be enriched.”
Calls for more political commitment in terms of data protection: IT expert Caroline Krohn (Greens).
© Martin Kreutter
Another piece of bad news: the individual customer can do very little when it comes to deleting the data collected from the negotiation pool when a company is sold. Caroline Krohn summarizes: “If politicians no longer make an effort to adequately enforce their own laws, the individual can still do so much not to give companies their data – they will not be able to defend themselves. The data hunger of corporations is immense . Structural changes are needed here.”
The enemy, the camera
One star-An inquiry to Amazon as to whether the data from the apartments would be used – and if so, how – has so far remained unanswered. Likewise, the group has so far not given any further information about the reason for the takeover and the accusation that it primarily wants the floor plans of Roomba users.
The warning of too many cameras in your own four walls does not mean that Krohn is only limited to Amazon. In the rooms of the author of this text, a copy of the Chinese brand Roborock makes its rounds – and also diligently films what is in the apartment, where the carpet is and where the furniture is changing. To be on the safe side, it closed star hence the question of whether this is particularly clever. The expert’s short but honest answer: “No.”
Which brings us full circle to the principle of data avoidance and data minimization: The only way to defend yourself effectively against espionage in the long term is to offer as few targets as possible. For better or worse, you have to do without some comforts – and maybe just vacuum the apartment yourself.