Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Air Fryer, Food and Drink, Technology
Mia Williams
Three popular air fryer brands in the UK have been accused of 'spying' on users after experts at Which? looked into their data security policies.
While air fryers have been at the top of everyone's kitchen wish list for a couple of years now, it seems there may be a flaw in the widely popular appliance after all.
A study in 2024 revealed that over half (51 percent) of all UK homes own an air fryer, and that the trendy gadgets are the third most used appliance in UK kitchens.
They are a modern re-take on the classic deep-fat fryers, which of course used boiling hot oil to cook food.
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Social media has been filled with people singing the praises of the kitchen gadgets, but experts from 'consumer champion' Which? have found alleged problems with the data security of three particular brands.
Harry Rose, Which? magazine editor, suggested that all three of the brands that were scrutinised demanded permission to listen in on users' conversations.
He wrote: "Our research shows how smart tech manufacturers and the firms they work with are currently able to collect data from consumers, seemingly with reckless abandon, and this is often done with little or no transparency."
Which? rated the air fryers on six different categories - consent, transparency, data security, data minimisation, trackers, and data deletion.
The brands included in the study were Aigostar, Xiaomi Mi Smart and Cosori CAF-LI401S.
And their analysis revealed that all three companies knew their customers' precise location and requested permission to record audio on the user's phone.
The Xiaomi Mi Smart has an app that consumers use, which has trackers connected to Facebook, Pangle (the ad network of TikTok for Business), and Chinese tech company Tencent.
"The Aigostar air fryer wanted to know gender and date of birth when setting up an owner account, again for no clear reason, but this was optional," Which? continued.
And while it is clearly stated in their privacy notice, both the Aigostar and Xiaomi air fryers send users' personal data back to servers in China, where they are manufactured.
When confronted about the privacy concerns, a spokesperson for Xiaomi said: "The permission to record audio on Xiaomi Home app is not applicable to Xiaomi Smart Air Fryer which does not operate directly through voice commands and video chat."
A spokesperson for Cosori also noted: "We prioritise privacy, and subject to our internal compliance requirements, the smart products must comply with GDPR."