There’s one battle my husband and I have fought ever since we started cohabiting: whether to allow “smart” appliances in our home. He, an enthusiastic gadget fan, would happily connect all of our household goods to the internet so he could control them from his phone. I, a jaded tech journalist, am far too paranoid to surround myself with a bunch of data-guzzling surveillance machines.
So I felt somewhat vindicated when I saw the latest story about a seemingly innocuous utensil apparently getting a bit too data-hungry. The consumer group Which? found that three air fryers it tested had connected phone apps that requested permission to record audio – not something you’d imagine to be a critical function for an object whose sole purpose is to cook food. The devices also wanted to know users’ exact locations.
