Connected sex toys recorded intimate sessions without consent
A Reddit account claiming to work for the company called the issue a "minor bug."
Days ago, a Redditor discovered that their Lovense remote control app was unknowingly recording audio of a six-minute intimate session between the user and their significant other. It happened while they used the app to control the Lovense vibrator it's paired with, and it saved the recording to a local file buried in the phone's media storage. Another commenter, claiming to be a Lovense representative, said these recordings are the result of a "minor software bug."
According to the supposed representative, the bug only affects the Android version of the app (iOS users are unaffected), and the issue has been fixed in the latest version. The app requests access to a smartphone or tablet's microphone and video, which are used to send messages in peer-to-peer chat -- not to record sessions for later. The Redditor admitted to granting the app such access, but only came across the recording when combing media files. Subsequently, others in the thread found similar audio files (many labeled 'tempSoundPlay.3gp') on their devices.
This is obviously worrying, but it's not the first time sex devices have run into trouble for quietly collecting user data. The makers of the We-Vibe connected vibrator paid out $3.75 million in a class-action lawsuit after its paired app recorded info about owners' use habits. Lovense asserts on its site that no "sensitive data" passes through its servers, and that all info sent between users is encrypted. But given how fervent sex industries are to embrace teledildonics, perhaps users should be wary about how much of their sensitive data gets transferred -- knowingly or otherwise -- when using sensitive toys.
