IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March 2018 - 104
The vampire rule has its root
in a collective understanding that
our homes are special places that
afford us an important and desired
level of privacy.
This leads vampires to try all sorts of techniques to trick
you into allowing them in. Bram Stoker's Dracula feigns
an air of being a man of noble birth with the hope that he
will be welcomed as a guest. Some vampires pretend to be a
long-lost friend in an effort to be invited in. In other mythologies, the seemingly innocent act of laying a mat outside your
door that says "Welcome" is a sufficient invitation to allow a
vampire to enter.
This vampire rule serves as an interesting plot device in
supernatural fiction, but it has its root in a collective understanding that our homes are special places that afford us an
important and desired level of privacy. Envisioning the home
as a designated private space has even been written into the
U.S. legal system. The law recognizes our homes as having a layer of legal protection that we don't have when we
walk down the street. Police, random strangers, and companies are free to approach, speak to, and even photograph you in public areas, but they do not have the right
to spy on what you do inside your home. We are guaranteed
an expectation of basic privacy in our own houses.
LegaL Privacy and
the home
The special status of the home has come under threat from
the introduction of new technologies. The law has, in
response, adapted in an effort to defend this privacy. In Kyllo
v. United States, for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court
weighed in on a case where public officials used a thermal
imaging device to measure the heat signature of a person's
private home. The device showed a heat pattern consistent
with the types of lamps needed to illegally grow marijuana,
and they used that information to pursue the case and ultimately convict the owner. In its decision in favor of Kyllo,
the Supreme Court said that the use of such a technology
was an illegal search of a private home without a warrant.
Justice Scalia noted that the Supreme Court's interpretation
of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable
searches and seizures, "draws a firm line at the entrance to
the house."
However, if we choose to invite others into our home, we
give up that right to privacy. Furthermore, as with vampires,
there are a variety of techniques that people use to obtain that
invitation. As we learn from legal dramas on television, it's
not an innocent question when a police officer asks: "May we
come in?" An affirmative response signals that the homeowner has waived his or her right to requiring a warrant.
104 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine
^
March 2018
Anything the police find as they look around can be used in a
court of law.
And it's not just police officers that might want an invitation into your home. Corporations and the marketing teams
they employ thrive on gathering personal information about
you, and they are finding a variety of new ways to ask, "May
we come in?"
the roomba as an eLectronic vamPire
The chief executive officer (CEO) of iRobot, for instance,
recently announced that his company has already been invited into the homes of many Americans, through its 900 series
of Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners. Purchasing a vacuum
cleaner and letting it run around your house does not seem
like an invitation any more than buying a hammer from
Sears would be. But the 900-series Roomba has some special features.
Released in 2015, the newest Roomba is equipped with
both cameras and mapping technology. It uses these devices
to develop a clear map of your house so that it will be able to
both move more efficiently and let you know where the most
dirt is piling up. At first glance, it seems that the cost of this
robotic janitor is US$600-1,000. But in the fine print that
you are required to sign to use all of the product's functions,
you must also agree to give iRobot access to all of the data
the Roomba collects, including the maps it generates of your
house. In essence, the price of a Roomba is both a wad of
cash and an invitation into your home. The CEO recently
promised investors that it has been collecting these maps and
will be selling them to corporations like Amazon, Google,
and Apple.
It is reasonably easy to miss the fact that the invitation is
part of the cost of the device. For instance, the owner's
manual for the 900 series mentions nothing about what iRobot does with your personal information or the data it collects in your house or any rights and privileges you may
have. Even if you are concerned enough about the issue to
inquire into the company's official privacy policy, you are
likely to miss it. The policy opens with a superficially reassuring statement: "iRobot Corporation ('iRobot,' 'we' or
'us') is committed to protecting your privacy." Only the
most diligent readers will notice that a few pages later, under "Information We Collect from Registered Devices,"
the document states that the second you connect your device to Wi-Fi, you have given the company the right to collect information and sell it to third parties. You have the
option of maintaining your privacy by not connecting to WiFi, but in doing so, you disable many of the features described on the box-including your ability to run your
vacuum through your smartphone.
is it reaLLy that bad?
At first glance, giving out the floor plan of your house to
anonymous companies may not seem like a terribly important
loss of privacy. However, there is a lot that can be done with
that information, and it's not likely to benefit you.
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