Facebook Promises Its New Portal Devices Are Totally Safe And Secure. Is That True?
Just how carefully does Facebook look after your data?
If there’s one thing that’s defined the modern age, it’s all of our wildest dreams coming true in the most vaguely unsettling possible ways. Take, for instance, Facebook‘s Portal.
Portal is a video call device, exactly of the kind that sci-fi movies have been promising us for decades. Small and compact, it uses motion-activated cameras, so its users don’t need to worry about juggling devices when trying to call their loved ones. You pop it on a surface, call whoever you want to call (using Facebook’s messenger service, of course), and the Portal does the rest.
Then there’s the quality of the imaging and audio. Portal uses adjustable lighting and enhanced audio in an attempt to ensure that calls are as clear as possible.
All sounds good, right? But if you have that niggling feeling that it’s a bad idea to leave a small camera hooked up to a multi-national corporation that harvests your data in your own home, then you’re not alone. In fact, Facebook itself has addressed fears over security directly, promising users that the device is totally secure.
But how true are those claims?
How Does Facebook Portal Keep Your Data Safe?
In the press release outlining Portal, Facebook claims that the device has a kill switch that, when tapped, stops the Portal from recording audio and video. There’s also a light next to the lens that lets you know when the camera is on, and a little camera cover that you can slide across the lens to physically block recording.
That last measure is probably the one that will appease most worried minds. After all, there’s nothing Facebook or hackers can do about a physical cover over a lens. There’s a lot that both can do about a little light — most webcams have those too, and they can easily be shut off by motivated hackers.
Facebook has updated its AI technology to make it even easier for Portal's camera to follow you around the room. What could go wrong? https://t.co/akFlt9mcv8
— WIRED (@WIRED) September 18, 2019
As for the kill switch, that’s becoming a popular feature in recent years, with the HP Spectre showing it off as a unique selling point. Given the switch cuts off power, it would be hard to circumnavigate, and there have been no reports as of yet of HP’s kill switch being hijacked, so that’s good news.
So, on the whole, the device boasts at least one, probably two somewhat effective safety measures.
Will It Listen To Me?
Anticipating worries, Facebook has released its guidelines around the ‘Hey Portal’ feature, which will listen for that phrase and turn on when it hears it.
A snippet of you saying that phrase will be sent to Facebook and possibly reviewed by a trained team there. That sounds fairly scary, but Facebook promises that users will be able to control what happens with their data. They can turn off ‘Hey Portal’ altogether, they can turn off Portal sending audio snippets to Facebook, and they can see the total history of their Portal’s interactions with Facebook.
But ultimately, the question is whether or not you trust Facebook generally. Which you have a lot of reasons not to. After all, though the company has long claimed not to be listening to users to harvest market data, it’s a myth that they simply can’t dispel entirely from the court of public opinion.
ICYMI: Are the ads you see sometimes so accurate you think your phone is listening to you? While that's not the case, the reality is even creepier.
Here's how Google & Facebook collect your data & use it to auction you off to advertisers for profit: https://t.co/F0TZbUEwsN pic.twitter.com/5Jlfl1VTsg
— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) August 21, 2019
And even if they’re not using that exact method to harvest data for the use and abuse of advertising companies, they definitely are harvesting data for the use and abuse of advertising companies.
So on the whole, Facebook Portal is certainly safer than Facebook could probably have gotten away making it. But whenever you let a corporation too deeply into your life, you always take some risks. The question is whether it’s worth the reward. And with the Portal going for $500AUD, it might well not be for many potential buyers.