Anker offered to pay Eufy camera owners to share videos for training its AI

Earlier this year, Anker, the Chinese institution that makes Eufy information cameras, offered its users wealth successful speech for videos of packages and car thefts. 

The fashionable internet-connected information camera shaper said it would wage its customers $2 per video to bid its AI systems to assistance amended observe thieves who bargain cars and packages.  

“To guarantee we person capable data, we are looking for videos of some existent and staged events, to assistance bid the Al what to beryllium connected the lookout for,” the institution wrote connected its website.  

“You tin adjacent make events by pretending to beryllium a thief and donate those events,” the website reads. “You tin implicit this quickly. Maybe 1 enactment tin beryllium captured by your 2 outdoor cameras simultaneously, making it businesslike and easy. If you besides signifier a car doorway theft, you mightiness gain $80.” 

Eufy besides wrote that “the information collected from these staged events is utilized solely for grooming our Al algorithms and not for immoderate different purposes.”  

This inaugural shows that companies are consenting to wage to get users’ information they deliberation tin beryllium utile to bid their AI models. While this gives immoderate users the quality to get worth retired of their ain data, determination are information and privateness risks involved.  

Case successful point: Last week, TechCrunch recovered that Neon, a viral calling app that offered wealth to users consenting to stock recordings and transcripts of their calls, had a information flaw that allowed users to entree immoderate different user’s data. After being alerted of the information lapse, Neon went offline.  

Hundreds of thousands of videos ‘donated’ to bid AI

Eufy’s run offering $2 per video for theft videos ran from December 18, 2024, to February 25, 2025. More than 120 users responded connected the campaign’s announcement leafage saying they participated successful it, according to comments posted by users there.  

The company’s extremity was to cod 20,000 videos each of bundle thefts and of “pulling car doors.” Eufy users could enactment by filling retired a Google Form wherever they could upload videos and their PayPal relationship for payment.  

Eufy did not respond to TechCrunch’s requests for remark and our questions, specified arsenic however galore users participated successful the campaign, however overmuch wealth it paid those users, however galore videos the institution collected, and whether the institution deleted the collected videos aft grooming its AI systems.  

Since then, Eufy has akin campaigns aimed astatine incentivizing its customers to nonstop successful videos to bid their AI. 

As of the clip of publication, done different in-app run that Eufy calls the Video Donation Program to amended its AI systems, Eufy besides offers users rewards that scope from an “Apprentice Medal,” which appears to simply beryllium a badge adjacent to the user’s sanction successful the app, to gifts specified arsenic cameras oregon acquisition cards. 

Eufy is lone asking for videos involving humans for this campaign. 

The Eufy app besides shows a “Honor Wall” that ranks users who person donated the astir video events. The person of the ranking has donated 201,531 videos, according to the app.  

In the app’s leafage for the donation program, Eufy clarifies that “donated videos are lone utilized for Al grooming and improvement. Eufy volition not supply the video to 3rd parties.” 

Eufy besides asks users to donate videos recorded with the company’s babe monitors. The enactment leafage detailing the steps to stock the videos does not notation immoderate wealth reward for these videos.  

Eufy did not respond erstwhile asked astir this peculiar initiative.  

There are reasons to beryllium doubtful of Eufy’s commitments to support users’ privacy. In 2023, The Verge revealed that the institution tried to screen up that users’ camera streams, which the institution advertised arsenic end-to-end encrypted, were unencrypted erstwhile accessed done its web portal.  

After a backmost and distant with the tech quality site, Anker admitted it misled users and promised to hole the issue.