Woman Sues Sex Toy App For Secretly Capturing Sensitive Information (ctvnews.ca)

A woman in Chicago filed a class action lawsuit against the makers of a smartphone-enabled vibrator, alleging their devices "secretly collect and transmit 'highly sensitive' information." CTV News reports: The lawsuit, which was filed earlier this month in an Illinois court, explains that to fully operate the device, users download the We-Connect app on a smartphone, allowing them and their partners remote control over the Bluetooth-equipped vibrator's settings... The suit alleges that unbeknownst to its customers, Standard Innovation designed the We-Connect app to collect and record intimate and sensitive data on use of the vibrator, including the date and time of each use as well as vibration settings...

It also alleges the usage data and the user's personal email address was transmitted to the company's servers in Canada. The statement of claim alleges the company's conduct demonstrates "a wholesale disregard" for consumer privacy rights and violated a number of state and federal laws.
Slashdot reader BarbaraHudson argues that "It kind of has to share that information if it's going to be remotely controlled by someone else." But the woman's lawsuit claims she wouldn't have bought the device if she'd known that while using it, the manufacturer "would monitor, collect and transmit her usage information."

Comments

Re: And thus the Internet of Things collapses

[Anonymous Coward]

The old American dream was to work hard, climb the ladder, and one day you can be rich too.######

I've heard this a million times, and I wonder how valid this view of the
past really is. People were just as corrupt 100 years ago as they are now,
only now it's much more difficult to hide because of the ease of getting
information now vs back then. It seems like there more
corruption these days because of the flow of information.

(The good old days were not good. In the US, you could be lynched
just because of your skin color, and the perps, who often included
the local sherrif, would get away scot free. This is just one example)

We've talked about this before

[Morgon]

We've talked about this before. On its face, collecting information about settings changes, time of use, and duration of use are not inherently sensitive.

However, the issue (for me) is that it was later learned that these reports tie back to a username. Now, obviously a username is arguably non-PII by itself, but there are enough people putting in real information about themselves that it becomes a problem.

Is it worth a lawsuit? Or more accurately, is this an instance where popular opinion of a manufacturer's "should have known better" will override their own stated ToS/Privacy policies?