This way you can secure your smart home data a little better
Amazon may pay $30 million because Ring and Alexa violated their owners’ privacy. It had not removed children’s data, and there was a problem with employees’ access to the security videos captured by Ring cameras. Painful, because as a customer you don’t expect your privacy to be handled in that way. At the same time, many people are not sufficiently aware of the problems that can arise with smart homes. We give you a few tips to make your smart home a little smarter in terms of privacy.
Use two-factor authentication
Actually, this applies to every place where you enter a password: see if two-factor authentication is present and use it. In this way, a hacker cannot gain access simply by knowing your password (due to a leak or a script), but access must also be given via a device (for example via a text message to your smartphone). That is considerably less close to a hacker, so that he or she cannot gain access.
Use a hub
All those separate devices that communicate directly with your phone via WiFi are less safe for your home network than when you use a hub. Those hubs are often provided with some extra security options, in addition to the fact that it is also a lot less messy on your network. Philips Hue has its own hub, just to give an example. That gives slightly less direct access to your WiFi network than all those separate things that are all connected separately.
Delete your data
Of course you don’t have to delete your Ring account if you want to keep using it, but you can make sure that, for example, the history of the voice assistants you use is regularly deleted. That way people have less insight into what you do. Regularly delete your internet history, but also, for example, your Google history.
Turn things off every once in a while
Very handy that the camera is on when you’re not there, but maybe it’s not really necessary to be filmed by your Ring while you’re just sitting on the couch at home. It doesn’t hurt to switch things off completely once in a while, especially if you’re at home yourself, so there’s not really a reason to have security on. You can possibly turn it back on in the evening when you go to bed, but letting your cameras film you all the time during the day is not really necessary.
Save your data locally
Unfortunately, a smart home brand got wet on this subject last year, but it is really possible: ensure that your data is stored locally. You don’t necessarily have to be able to do everything online, a large part can also be done offline. If you invest in a smart home brand, look for a brand that makes it possible to store data locally.
Laura Jenny
When she’s not tapping, she’s traveling around the wonderful world of entertainment or some cool place in the real world. Mario is the man of her life,…
