Anker’s Eufy Offers Payments for Theft Videos to Train AI, Raising Privacy Concerns

Anker, the Chinese technology company behind the Eufy brand of smart home devices, launched a campaign offering users monetary rewards for sharing videos of package and car thefts to train its AI systems. The initiative, which ran from December 18, 2024, to February 25, 2025, paid customers $2 per video, with the potential to earn up to $80 by staging events like a car door theft captured across two outdoor cameras. Eufy encouraged users to create realistic scenarios, even suggesting they pretend to be thieves, to generate training data. The company stated that all donated videos would be used exclusively for AI training and not shared with third parties. It also emphasized that the data would not be used for any other purpose. The campaign aimed to collect 20,000 videos each of package thefts and car door thefts. Users participated by submitting videos through a Google Form, along with their PayPal details for payment. Despite multiple requests, Eufy did not respond to inquiries about how many users took part, how much money was paid out, how many videos were collected, or whether the data was deleted after training. Since the initial campaign, Eufy has continued similar efforts through its in-app Video Donation Program, which offers non-monetary rewards such as badges, gift cards, and free cameras. The app features an “Honor Wall” that ranks users by the number of videos donated, with one user claiming to have contributed over 200,000 videos. Eufy also asks users to share videos from its baby monitors, though no financial incentive is mentioned for these submissions. The company has not addressed whether these videos are also used for AI training or how they are protected. Concerns about data privacy and security remain, especially given Eufy’s past issues. In 2023, The Verge reported that Eufy had misrepresented the encryption of its camera streams—claiming end-to-end encryption while allowing unencrypted access via its web portal. After public scrutiny, Anker admitted to misleading users and pledged to fix the problem. The current campaign highlights a growing trend: companies are actively paying users for personal data to improve AI models. While this offers users a chance to monetize their content, it raises serious questions about consent, data handling, and long-term privacy. With no clear transparency on data retention or deletion, and a history of privacy missteps, users should remain cautious about sharing sensitive footage.