The EFF, iFixit, Consumer Reports, and other advocacy groups say many buzzy tech demos at CES failed to address how customer data is collected and protected
CES brings a flood of new gadgets with dangerous technology and little vetting — LAS VEGAS — American shoppers …
Context & Ripple Effects
CES has been drifting toward surveillance-adjacent hardware for years — the show's all-in embrace of face scanners and tracking devices in 2020 made that explicit — while regulators have been warning about connected-device data practices since the F.T.C.'s call for strong data and privacy protection for connected devices back in 2015. What changed at this year's show is who is saying it publicly: EFF, iFixit, and Consumer Reports are now auditing the demo floor itself rather than individual products.
First-order effects
- Vendors showing buzzy gadgets at CES now face organized scrutiny from groups like iFixit and Consumer Reports whose teardowns and product tests reach shoppers directly, not just policymakers.
- Consumer Reports' finding that voice-cloning tools from ElevenLabs, Speechify, PlayHT, and Lovo carry easily bypassed safeguards gives the advocacy coalition a concrete, named set of products where data and consent protections demonstrably failed.
Second-order effects
- Hardware makers courting CES buzz must budget for privacy vetting as part of launch PR, since a demo can now be met with an advocacy teardown the same week it debuts.
- The criticism lands on a smart home market already chastened by its own overreach — the industry's post-boom pause after moving too fast without understanding what consumers want — giving retailers and buyers a reason to demand privacy answers before stocking new device categories.
Third-order effects
- If advocacy groups keep institutionalizing this audit role, pre-launch privacy scrutiny could become a standing gate for consumer tech launches, filling the enforcement gap the F.T.C. flagged nearly a decade ago.
- EFF's long-running scorecard approach — it has graded company privacy practices since at least its 2015 data privacy report lauding Apple and slamming Verizon — points toward reputational rankings becoming a de facto regulatory layer for gadgets that legislation has not caught up with.
The trend: Consumer tech accountability is shifting from after-the-fact regulation toward advocacy-led audits that attach to products at their splashiest public debut.