Xiaomi smart camera displays other's images and intrudes privacy
UPDATE: Xiaomi, in a statement to Indiatvnews.com, said, "Xiaomi has always prioritized our users' privacy and information security. We are aware there was an issue of receiving stills while connecting Mi Home Security Camera Basic 1080p on Google Home hub. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused to our users. Our team has since acted immediately to solve the issue and it is now fixed. Upon investigation, we have found out the issue was caused by a cache update on December 26, 2019, which was designed to improve camera streaming quality. This has only happened in extremely rare conditions. In this case, it happened during the integration between Mi Home Security Camera Basic 1080p and the Google Home Hub with a display screen under poor network conditions."
"We have also found 1044 users were with such integrations and only a few with extremely poor network conditions might be affected. This issue will not happen if the camera is linked to the Xiaomi’s Mi Home app. Xiaomi has communicated and fixed this issue with Google, and has also suspended this service until the root cause has been completely solved, to ensure that such issues will not happen again," said Xiaomi.
Intruding someone’s privacy seems to be a thing tech products are adapting. As part of a new security issue, a man’s Xiaomi smart security camera showed other people’s images, instead of his own house.
Xiaomi scam: Xiaomi smart camera intrudes people’s privacy
According to a Reddit user (going by the name ‘u/Dio-V), when he connected his Xiaomi smart security camera to his Google Nest Hub, he was introduced to a surprise. Instead of displaying images of his house, pictures of other people were shown on the display.
The photos included a sleeping baby in a cradle, a view of an enclosed porch, and a man seemingly asleep in a chair, among a number of images). Another thing worth noting is that the images displayed in black and white format with scan lines and distortion, making the whole scenario weird.
The security camera was a Xiaomi Mijia 1080p Smart IP Security Camera and was bought from AliExpress. Additionally, the Google Home Nest Hub was new.
However, there is no word on when this started to happen and why. Possibilities think us into believing that the man is just fooling around and faking it all. Another one hints at a security bug in the Xiaomi smart device.
Google, Xiaomi’s response
Upon knowing the issue, Google has disabled any integration of Xiaomi devices with Google Nest devices. In a statement, Google said, “We’re aware of the issue and are in contact with Xiaomi to work on a fix. In the meantime, we’re disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices.”
However, Google has now enabled the integration of Xiaomi devices, except for Xiaomi cameras.
