Eufy Security Cams

Earlier this year, your intrepid *Privacy Not Included researcher decided she needed some indoor security cams to help keep an eye on her beloved kitty while on a trip for a couple of nights. Being a privacy researcher, the one feature she wanted in her security cams was that all video captured be stored locally, not in the less secure cloud. And so, she purchased Eufy’s security cams for that feature and because they do a good job, in general, protecting personal data. What’s her verdict so far? No regrets at all. These Eufy cams make spying on the kitty about as worry free as possible.

We really like that your security cam footage is stored locally, not in the much less secure cloud (there is a cloud option though). You can access your videos at any time through the Eufy app, and that footage is protected by strong encryption in transit and where it is stored. This is all very cool.

Eufy also doesn't sell your personal data, which is cool. Eufy does collect information on you and uses that informaiton to show you ads for them and third parties, which isn’t super cool but also isn't unsual. Eufy's AI provides human, pet, and crying detection of what your security cams see. One key value of Eufy's local storage is that all AI analyses are done locally, which ensures privacy and is usually much quicker than cloud-based analyses.

Unfortunately, Eufy isn’t perfect. In May 2021, Eufy was forced to apologize for a bug that exposed the camera feeds of 712 users to strangers. Eufy said the glitch happened during a software update and “users were able to access video feeds from other users’ cameras.” Eufy said in a statement the glitch was fixed an hour after it was discovered. This is pretty much the worst case scenario for security cam users. Fortunately, Eufy identified and fixed this privacy nightmare quickly. And so, this is a good time to remind folks that anything accessed on the internet isn’t ever 100% safe. Even the good companies screw up.