Tips to Avoid Buying The Creepiest Gifts This Holiday Season
The holidays are here! And with them comes the busiest shopping season of the year. Do you have shopping to do? Need a little help? Want to make sure you avoid buying that camera that could spy, or the toy that is easily hacked? We’re here to help you know what’s creepy and what’s not this holiday shopping season.
Here are a few tips to help you shop safe for connected toys and gifts:
- Know what you are comfortable with.
We all have different levels of concern about privacy and security. Understand where you and the person you are shopping for stand. The best way to do that is to have a conversation. Ask them how they feel about privacy and security when it comes to things that connect to the internet. If you are shopping for children, ask their parents what they are comfortable with their kids having. - Do your research.
Anything can be hacked — from the microphone on a talking doll, to a company’s cloud servers that store the personal information a device collects on you. It’s up to you to be aware if the gift you are buying has a camera, microphone, or tracks your location. For most products, you can learn what you need to know by reading the product’s info page, privacy policy, and downloading the app it uses ahead of time to see how much access it asks of your phone or tablet. If you don’t have the time or the know-how to do that research, we created a buyer’s guide to help you out. - Understand the risks.
Not all risks are the same. Having the app your toothbrush uses track your location might sound weird. But if you mostly brush your teeth in your bathroom every day, that probably doesn’t pose too much of a risk. Putting always-on internet-connected cameras inside and outside your house could open you up to being spied on in your most intimate moments. Weigh the risks of the connected gifts you are shopping for — and ask yourself before you buy, “Do I really need this to connect to the internet?”
Want more information? Go check out Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included buyer’s guide. We researched 70 of the hottest connected gifts and toys for the holiday season and looked at their privacy and security. Which gifts are creepy and which are not? The guide considers five important questions you should ask before buying a connected gift: Can it spy on you? What does it know about you? Can you control it? Does the company show they care about their customers? What could happen if something goes wrong?
We try to make it easy for you to understand how the products compare when it comes to privacy and security — so you can shop safe this holiday season.
Happy Holidays!
