What you need to know
- Eufy has begun removing and changing the wording of its own privacy and security policies from its website.
- The company has yet to fully address security issues found over two weeks ago.
- Eufy previously had camera footage privacy breaches in May 2021, further compounding issues with the company’s products.
Over the past month, Eufy has gone from a darling brand of many tech sites and mainstream outlets — including Android Central — to a brand whose trust evaporated nearly overnight. After the events of late November (opens in new tab) and the previous year’s similar issues, Android Central moved to an official “no recommendation” stance (opens in new tab) on Eufy products.
We’re now upgrading that to a warning that Eufy users should remove all Eufy cameras they have set up on their premises. We have a list of the best Eufy camera alternatives (opens in new tab) if you want to replace them with something more reputable, including recommendations for price, local storage, and object detection requirements.
Why did the recommendation change? It’s come to light that Eufy has begun removing security and privacy promises from its own website instead of actually addressing the issues put forth against the company’s products (per The Verge (opens in new tab)). If you view the company’s website on archive.org (opens in new tab) and then compare it with the current Eufy Privacy Commitment (opens in new tab) page, you’ll notice several parts of the site have been changed. Here’s a collection of all the major changes we found:
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Among the many changes on Eufy’s Privacy Policy site, we found these three to be the most heinous. Some of the wording on many of the company’s policies seems to have been changed to enhance clarity but these three examples are outright changes to policies, not just clarifications.
Additionally, Eufy completely removed the policy around sharing footage with law enforcement entirely.
As Eufy has begun to change its promises and backtrack on company policies, Android Central is officially recommending that Eufy users begin sunsetting their Eufy cameras as soon as possible. The company has not responded to Android Central’s requests since after the initial November incidents which already sends up red flags about Eufy’s behavior.
Additionally, changing key terms of service or privacy and security commitments completely erodes any remaining trust in the company’s products. Even if these policy changes don’t bother you right now, there’s no telling what else Eufy will backtrack on or what it might change in the future.
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