Air fryers among home devices with 'excessive' surveillance

Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers "stuffed with trackers" are among examples of smart devices engaged in "excessive" surveillance discovered by Which?

- Robert Booth

The consumer organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple in British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user's phone through a connected app.

Smart air fryers allow cooks to schedule their meal to start cooking before they get home. Not all air fryers have such functionality, but those that do often use an app installed on a smartphone. Which? found the app provided by the company Xiaomi connected to trackers for Facebook and a TikTok ad network. The Xiaomi fryer and another by Aigostar both sent people's personal data to servers in China, although this was flagged in the privacy notice, the consumer testing body found.