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Teams of employees and contractors across the US, Costa Rica, India, and Romania listen to audio clips captured from Echo devices in people's homes. Reviewers have overheard intimate moments, children screaming, and what they believed was a sexual assault. Recordings were sometimes shared in internal chat rooms. Amazon settled for $25 million over allegations that 30,000 employees had access to users' conversations.

Even if you opt out of their "improvement program," Amazon says your recordings may still be analyzed by hand in the normal review process. Your voice data is stored indefinitely unless you manually delete it.

In 2022, Amazon confirmed Ring gave police 11 videos without notifying users or requiring warrants, citing "emergency" circumstances. Over 2,000 police departments had access to request footage through Ring's Neighbors app. After massive backlash, Ring announced in early 2024 they would stop allowing police to request footage from users.

Then in 2025, Ring quietly reversed that decision. They partnered with Axon and Flock Safety — a nationwide license plate surveillance network — to reinstate police access to user footage. The "privacy win" lasted about a year.

Google has discontinued the Nest Secure alarm system, Nest Protect, Nest x Yale Lock, Nest Cam IQ, and Dropcam Pro. In 2016, they remotely bricked every Revolv smart hub, turning purchased hardware into paperweights overnight. The "lifetime subscription" turned out to mean the lifetime of the device — which they chose to end.

First and second generation Nest Learning Thermostats lost all smart features in October 2025. Users who paid hundreds of dollars were offered a discount on buying a replacement from the same company that just killed their old one.

Smart thermostats log temperature changes every few seconds, track your phone's location through geofencing, and record motion patterns in five-minute intervals. They know your sleep schedule, your daily routines, and your energy habits plotted at 15-minute intervals. Some manufacturers run "Donate Your Data" programs that collect motion data for public health surveillance research.

The smart plug on your bedside lamp knows when you go to sleep and when you wake up. The one in your living room knows when you're home and when you're not. Manufacturers use this data to build profiles of your daily routines, which can be sold to third-party advertisers or used for targeted ads. IoT researchers have found that many devices phone home to external servers far more frequently than users realize — often every few minutes.

You bought a plug to turn on a lamp. You got a surveillance device that profiles your sleeping habits and sells the pattern to the highest bidder.