Things are not looking good for the Anker sub-brand. In case you have not been caught up with the drama, here’s a quick rundown. Over Thanksgiving, an Infosec researcher by the name of Paul Moore revealed that the security camera division of Anker, Eufy, actually sends photos and footage of its users to the cloud. This was all in spite of the copious claims that it never does that. Eufy claims that your data is always stored locally on your device and it never even touches the cloud. That’s a pretty hefty claim nowadays when companies are always watching and listening. To make matters worse, the data was not only stored on the cloud, but it was also unencrypted. This means that anyone could see the pictures or footage. People have been able to look at the content using video players as simple as VLC. People have also been able to discover that Eufy also uses facial recognition software. This means that if you take a picture using one Eufy camera on one account, the software will still recognize you if you take a picture of yourself using a different camera on a different account.
Eufy added a disclaimer test app
Hoping to assuage the situation, Eufy added a disclaimer to its mobile app. This disclaimer will let people know that footage and pictures will be temporarily uploaded to the cloud when certain settings are enabled. Thanks to 9To5Google, we have a screenshot of the disclaimer. It shows the notification settings with a list of all of the different options. Under the “Full Effect” and “Include Thumbnail” options, we see a grayed-out note saying: So, Anker pulled the classic “for a better experience” card. Having a disclaimer is nice and all, but it doesn’t do anything about the current situation. Anker has yet to take responsibility for its actions. Eufy gave a statement a few days ago, but the company was basically denying the accusations and asking people not to be mad at them. It did not give an explanation as to why it blatantly lied to its customers. There are people out there with pictures and footage of them on the cloud who were told that that will not happen. This is a developing story, and we’re not sure we’re going to see the end of it soon. As time goes on, more information will come out about this controversy.
