Get Answers - Is my smart speaker listening to me?
[00:00:00] Which?: PLEASE NOTE: This transcription was created using an AI transcription tool and may not be a 100% accurate representation of the recorded audio.
[00:00:09] Harry Kind: Right, I love making things smart. That's buying everything from light bulbs to tumble dryers with the ability to automate my life, monitor my usage, and control my home from anywhere on the planet. But, new witch research has revealed that many of these devices demand far more personal data than they need to.
[00:00:30] Your date of birth, your precise location, even access to your phone camera or microphone. But why should the cost of control be privacy? I'm Harry Kind, this is Get Answers.
[00:00:40] Which?: When life gives you questions, Witch Get Answers.
[00:00:45] Harry Kind: Don't forget the Get Answers podcast has now gone weekly. We'll be here every week until Christmas chatting to our brilliant witch journalists who have been working hard on some exclusive investigations.
[00:00:53] So please do hit subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. They'll be dropping next week. every single monday now let's welcome friend of the show principal researcher andy lochlan hello andy hello We're not talking about dishwashers today But we have talked to you a few times as well about smart tech and you've got a new investigation But let's kind of go back back to the original investigation about smart tech that you did last year.
[00:01:20] I think it was that, right? Well,
[00:01:22] Andy Laughlin: actually, this, this is a kind of a journey that's well over 10 years in the making, you know, when I actually joined boat, which in 2013, so forgive me a walk down memory lane. But it's in 2013. I came from a background of tech journalism. So we were very strong in traditional testing, you know, your washing machines, your cleaning Kettles, all the standard things like ergonomics and energy use and things like that.
[00:01:43] But I sort of saw this kind of gathering storm on the way of these sort of traditional appliances and things we have in our home increasingly kind of being connected to the internet. Now obviously that brings kind of real big benefits to people. You know, you can change settings on an app and use your voice sometimes and all sorts of things.
[00:02:02] But also if you, if you connect anything to the internet, you bring the goods and you potentially bring. They're not so good, and that's where we sort of started looking at this, and that actually began with TVs back in the day, I was hired to look at the TVs project, and we were sort of alerted to a gentleman who was an IT engineer, turned his TV on, and for the first time ever, having bought a new TV was presented with a set of terms and conditions.
[00:02:27] And being an inquiring individual, I started having a look into these terms and conditions and saying this seems a bit strange and started digging a little bit deeper into the TV and started seeing actually there was a huge range of things which was tracking on people who were using it, you know, right through to kind of what they had plugged into it, what they were watching and so on and so forth.
[00:02:49] So that's triggered off an idea and then we started doing our own investigations and looking into it.
[00:02:53] Harry Kind: I think we kind of take as granted now the idea that things can gather data, but a few years ago the only way we could see, for example, how many people had watched EastEnders was because a very small group of people had boxes attached to their TVs that they were paid to use that were monitoring them, and when you bought a TV or a radio or a magazine.
[00:03:17] There were no terms and conditions. It was a one way relationship, I suppose, where you were just getting stuff. You were never giving stuff other than a bit of cash. So that kind of started to change, I suppose, with smart TVs. How has it developed since then?
[00:03:32] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, well, I mean, first and foremost, smart products generally have developed, you know, and I think Back in 2013, a very small portion of TVs were smart.
[00:03:41] I mean, if you go out right now into Currys or whatever, and try and buy a non smart TV of any kind of standing, you, good luck, basically. It's
[00:03:49] Harry Kind: like
[00:03:49] Andy Laughlin: the expression, I always think, flat screen TV. We talk about flat screen
[00:03:52] Harry Kind: TVs all the time.
[00:03:53] Andy Laughlin: They're all flat screen TVs
[00:03:54] Harry Kind: now. They're
[00:03:54] Andy Laughlin: all smart TVs. I mean, apart from a few little caravan TVs and things like that, all the market's gone smart.
[00:04:00] And now what you're also seeing is in other spaces, it's starting to creep up too. So dishwashers, washing machines, tumble dryers, you know, starting to see sort of 30 to 40 percent of the market is going smart and it's creeping up. and up and up with some brands, completely smart appliance ranges. And then you've got kind of native smart products, doorbells, some thermostats, cameras, security cameras.
[00:04:24] So it's creeping upwards. And we're almost kind of like the frog in the pan of water, right? Yeah. We're just like, Oh, this is nice functionality around. And suddenly things start heating up around us and it starts
[00:04:35] Harry Kind: getting a little bit hotter than maybe we'd like it. So hopefully then it's not too late.
[00:04:39] We've not reached that boiling point. And, and I suppose that. Investigation that you're doing is kind of taking the temperature here. You see these kinds of terms and conditions. You hear from members that there are terms and conditions now for getting a TV. How does that lead to your investigation?
[00:04:54] Andy Laughlin: First and foremost, what we have done is, is looked at smart products in the kind of the wholesale of what they're doing. And part of that's been looking at, um, cybersecurity. So how well they're kind of protected against hacking risks, but also increasingly we've looked at the kind of privacy side. And so every time you sort of take your product home, you get your terms and conditions, you think you probably should read that, but then you go, I just want to use my product so I'm just going to click accept.
[00:05:19] But what we're doing then is we're agreeing to a set of conditions with the manufacturer that says this is how they're going to handle our data. Now, If you've got a traditional appliance, you don't have to think about that, it just sits there and goes, Hey, I'm an appliance. I do stuff. Thanks very much.
[00:05:34] But this one, it's got a relationship with not only the company, but the whole host of different companies. There could be companies who are putting in things that go on the interface. Maybe weather data or looking at how you're using it or optimizing it or, or if it crashes, it's saying, oh, whoops, I've crashed.
[00:05:50] Okay. I need to work out what's gone wrong here. And with that document that we all kind of skipped past in theory, should lay out what exactly you are agreeing to. Now what we were concerned about is whether you are kind of a complete privacy advocate who believes that you should, or everything should be private or you really don't care.
[00:06:11] We don't really mind where you sit on the spectrum, but what we want you to be able to do is to know what you're getting into. And what our research has shown time and time again is manufacturers are quite good at hiding or sort of fairly obfuscating, shall we say, what really is going on.
[00:06:29] Harry Kind: And so how did you seek to kind of measure that and investigate that?
[00:06:35] Yeah, so in previous
[00:06:36] Andy Laughlin: years, we've kind of. Got our data that we get from testing from investigations and sort of have a kind of an analysis point of view. So here's everything that's going on and that gets you so far. You go, okay, well, this track is here and there's permissions on my phone here and there's terms and conditions here.
[00:06:53] But it doesn't help us understand how does that connect to what they're legally supposed to be doing? Right. Because there are actually, you know, Data protection laws in place, the general data protection regulations, PECA, which is Privacy and Electronic Communications, there are various different things that they should be doing, but what is the problem is these rules are often quite broad.
[00:07:13] Right, so what might they
[00:07:15] Harry Kind: be asking
[00:07:16] Andy Laughlin: a company
[00:07:16] Harry Kind: to do?
[00:07:16] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, so if we say, you've got to give your consent fully and freely and be informed, it's got to be an informed consent. Now, that in principle sounds quite good, but actually In practice, how does that work? So if, if, if I'm saying, okay, click accept on the privacy document, I assume you've read it, thanks very much.
[00:07:37] That kind of assumes someone's read it. Now we all know that we do most of the time skip past these documents. We might kind of skip past a load of screens. I just want to use my air fryer to make chicken nuggets or my TV to watch TV. But that consent stage is how you agree to everything. It must be absolutely transparent what's going on at that stage, but all too often it kind of is rushed through.
[00:08:02] They want to get you through the door and then they can do what they want.
[00:08:05] Harry Kind: So the law says effectively you have, in a way, a little bit a right to privacy, but you basically sign that away pretty quickly when you're very excited to watch TV in 4k.
[00:08:17] Andy Laughlin: Yes, absolutely. So, You've got your new product, you want to use it, that's understandable.
[00:08:22] You don't necessarily want to have to sit down with your lawyer and go, Okay, what am I agreeing to here? Nobody wants to do that. But there are ways that you can do this. So I might say to you, Hey, here's a load of dense legalese, but actually the real things that you need to know is, I'm going to share your information with Facebook, with TikTok, with a few others.
[00:08:41] And if you don't like that, you can turn that bit off, you'll lose this functionality, but the rest of it will work fine. And I'll go, yeah, that's okay, that's fine. Or I might go, yeah, give Facebook my data, I don't
[00:08:51] Harry Kind: care. So a bit like the kind of allergens on a chocolate bar, you could look through all of the ingredients to find all the different things you're allergic to, but really, the best course of action is to list Very likely allergens, peanuts and milk.
[00:09:03] So that you know, oh right, that's what I'm getting myself into, no thank you, or I'll take that risk.
[00:09:09] Andy Laughlin: Absolutely,
[00:09:09] Harry Kind: yeah. It's about flagging it
[00:09:11] Andy Laughlin: clearly, isn't it? You know, if I'm informed, that means generally speaking, I have seen the most important aspects, I understood what I'm getting into, and I've, I've said yes, you know.
[00:09:22] And I think that's kind of the case with anything we agree to, isn't it, really? But all too often, we kind of rush through this process and, um, we sort of say yes probably before we
[00:09:30] Harry Kind: really should. So, what have you found that we are saying yes to in that moment? And is it the same across every different appliance?
[00:09:39] Are people being, are some behaving well and some just being greedy here?
[00:09:44] Andy Laughlin: Well, based on our research, no one's really nailing this. We've looked at, um, a range of big brands. And a lot of them are kind of taking a fairly liberal approach to this. I think that's to a certain extent understandable because there is no kind of standard.
[00:09:58] So if you think about it, an analogy I gave in a magazine article was, um, say for example, you lend someone your car and you say, well, please drive carefully. Now, if I'm a fairly confident driver, I might sort of think, okay, well, That means I can be confident, but reasonably cautious. If I'm really cautious, I'll think another thing.
[00:10:16] But it might not be clear to that person what you actually think. Whereas if you say, Don't break hard, don't go over the 40 mile an hour, don't do X, Y, and Z. If I do those things, then I'm breaking the rules. But if I don't know that's what you mean Then how do I know what the rules are? It seems vastly open to interpretation.
[00:10:38] That's the issue, yeah. And I think people need to realize when they take these smart products home, they are opening up a kind of wide range of access, and that can include quite pervasive and invasive access into their phone, into their personal life, and into their personal data.
[00:10:55] Harry Kind: So looking at this particular investigation, what did you actually have to do?
[00:10:59] Did you? Buy products for this and and what did you buy and and how did you start testing that?
[00:11:06] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, so first and foremost, you need to have a framework. The rules are quite open to interpretation. So how do you cancel that? Well, first of all, you define them more clearly. So we created a framework Worked with some real high level data protection experts, cyber security experts, InfoSec, legal, and defined, it's probably about 170 odd point framework, but you basically run through the framework and each item will rate against it.
[00:11:30] I mean, this is classic which testing, this is what we do all the time, whether it's power use or whatever. We then bought 12 products across four categories. So we wanted a home product, but for ease of portability, we decided against the big box clients and chose air fryers. Yes, air fryers are smart. We also looked at TVs, which is a very pivotal one for us, smart watches slash sort of fitness devices and also smart speakers, which have some big players involved.
[00:11:59] They also have the voice assistant aspect to them. So you speak to these things, they are listening to you, by the way, that's how they're supposed to work, but they shouldn't listen so much. But that's a different issue. And then what we did was we engaged some external experts from Hexiosec who are really high level cyber security experts.
[00:12:16] To actually test, physically test the devices and that will be us sitting down, powering them up and then rating against our framework, how consent was done, how the permissions were done and doing some actually sort of using some tools to look behind the scenes as well.
[00:12:31] Harry Kind: So ultimately they are setting up a bunch of air fryers, bunch of TVs.
[00:12:36] Whether it's you, whether it's them, are they actually giving away their data in the means of science? Or, or have you got these fake profiles?
[00:12:44] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, I mean, we have accounts that we use for testing. We do this all the time. Obviously, we do have to be careful with anybody's real personal data. We've got our own obligations as well.
[00:12:53] But yeah, we have ways of kind of testing these things.
[00:12:56] Harry Kind: So what were the results when you tested? took these smart products, compared them, you put them into this framework, you kind of gave them points and scores, what were the most kind of shocking, almost breaches of our privacy going on.
[00:13:13] Andy Laughlin: First and foremost, all of these devices typically, and their apps that they use, want a fairly invasive access to your smartphone.
[00:13:22] And I think what people really need to understand is there's probably like three pillars to a device. There are, the device itself and the tracking it's doing, there's the information you give it, so you set up an account, give your date of birth, give your name, blah blah blah, and then there's the access on your smartphone.
[00:13:39] Harry Kind: Right, so if I have a smart air fryer, I can't just plug that in and it automatically connects. You have an app on your phone, that's how you set it up, and that channels your relationship to that item, I suppose.
[00:13:51] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, and those apps, every single app you own. Needs to have access to certain aspects of your phone.
[00:13:57] Let's say, for example, you've got a, um, air fryer app that can look inside the drawer with a camera and say, oh, you're cooking chicken nuggets, you should do it for this long. Now it will need access to your camera for that. So it will get the permission to do so. Some of that might be justified, some not so.
[00:14:16] Harry Kind: So that's a really obvious, you want this functionality, therefore we need this permission to access your camera. Are there ones that are? Less transparent and straightforward.
[00:14:27] Andy Laughlin: Let's take an example. One of the smartwatches, it needs record audio on your phone. So the reason why it needs that is because it has a sleep tracking function.
[00:14:36] So the sleep tracking function is it's got a snore analysis, more kind of things like that, and it wants to listen through the phone To analyze the sleep sounds. Now, you might think, oh, that's quite useful. But that is a company listening to you sleep through your phone, right? So we just need to be aware that that's what it's doing.
[00:14:56] Likewise, you might give permission for your app to see all other apps you've got on your phone. So it'll go, oh, hey, wait a minute, you've got all these other things that you might like. Some of the things might be quite personal and sensitive and all sorts. I mean, for example, pretty much every app that you look at wants your precise location.
[00:15:11] Now, that's the precise location of your phone. That's everywhere you go. It's looking at that and it's and it's the precise location is actually pretty precise. Yeah, so these are invasive permissions and they are tagged as risky in a lot of forms because you should be careful about taking them. But we sort of give them free access and a free pass.
[00:15:33] Whether we've really thought about
[00:15:35] Harry Kind: that or not. We're gonna talk a little bit more about these results, but also why these devices and these companies might want your data. Stick around.
[00:15:49] Welcome back to Get Answers. Andy's work that we're talking about today originally featured in this month's Witch Magazine. You can be one of the first to read our investigations by becoming a Witch member. And don't forget to subscribe. that you podcast listeners can get a very special 50 percent off the usual price right now.
[00:16:05] So that means for just 49. 50, you'll be getting full access to all our product reviews, test scores, best buys, don't buy recommendations, our which app to use on the go, personalised buying advice from our experts, and of course the actual which magazine physically delivered to your door. And the best part is, you'll actually be helping people, like Andy, to do their important work.
[00:16:25] He sends his thanks. So head to which. co. uk slash podcast offer, grab yourself a membership just in time for Christmas, 50 percent off the usual price. Right, we are back talking about smart products. Your investigation has kind of established, look, there's a lot of data going to these companies. Beyond enabling you to look inside your air fryer, why else do these companies actually want and might be able to use this data?
[00:16:52] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important for people to say, to understand, sorry, that when you buy these products, you're not just buying it for one company, you're engaging with a whole spider's web.
[00:17:01] Harry Kind: So if you buy like a Sony TV, there's maybe data being given to people who have maybe separately worked on software or have worked in advertising or maybe the individual apps?
[00:17:13] Andy Laughlin: Oh yeah, I mean it could be huge numbers of different companies. Some of them will be really big names, some of them will be things you've never heard of. So you're kind of engaging in a much bigger range. You know like if you log on to a website and it says, here's our cookies warning, here's all the trackers we use.
[00:17:27] There's an APU. those things like I do, you suddenly say, Whoa, this is a lot of companies. Now some of that will be designing and delivering functionality that you actually might want, but obviously some of that will be used for marketing and advertising.
[00:17:40] Harry Kind: And so that marketing and advertising data, not just happening when you are going on a website, but it's happening with your, Smart devices.
[00:17:49] What did we find in the investigation when it comes to your data being sold or given away to advertisers?
[00:17:54] Andy Laughlin: Well, it's very hard to see where data goes right now The reason is because and this is kind of a good and a bad thing for cyber security We expect people to encrypt their information to protect it from hackers and prioritize, but obviously that Also means it's not easy to interrogate under legal requirements and all sorts of things.
[00:18:14] So you're kind of left kind of seeing half the picture. And also you're putting an awful lot of trust in the company themselves. And that means that their transparency and what they tell you up front is all the more important.
[00:18:27] Harry Kind: And even if a company is being transparent about what data it's collecting, you never know whether that data might actually reveal more about you than you thought, you know, I'm just thinking of in the States, a number of people who are now saying, if you've got a period tracking app, delete that off your phone, because while It may well be a, uh, morally good app company that's running it.
[00:18:50] Who knows what government is going to subpoena the data that they are holding on you and, and using against you?
[00:18:57] Andy Laughlin: Absolutely. I mean, there was a famous story a while ago with the CEO of the robot vac company, um, who, uh, caught some rather controversy because he said, well, maybe we could use the maps of inside people's homes.
[00:19:09] For various reasons, you know, create a Google Maps for your home, right? And that's the map that the robots basically made itself. Yeah, yeah. And obviously they roll back on that and say, oh, wait a minute. But you know, it shows that there's obviously a rich data here. I mean, I think if people need to think, how many connected devices do I have in my home?
[00:19:29] I bet you'd be surprised. I bet it'd be over 10. And, and, you know, your car as well. And so you've got this huge connected world that you're in and it's getting more and more connected and actually what you're not realizing is when you log on your PC or use your phone, you might have an expectation on being tracked or or there's some kind of data going to go on when I'm making my chicken nuggets or trying to work.
[00:19:52] I'm not thinking like that. Yeah. But it's happening, and there's a hidden world behind there that
[00:19:58] Harry Kind: you probably need to be aware of. In economics, there's this idea of like, revealed preference. So, when you are on your laptop and you're searching for, like, extra large pants, then you are very aware that that's what you're searching for, and you can change what you search, and you can change what you search for on incognito.
[00:20:15] But there's no changing. The reveal preference of how long you cook things for or what times of the day you're driving or when you've changed the thermostat in your house. That's your reveal preferences and that data is maybe even more valuable than what we are kind of consciously giving to a company.
[00:20:33] Andy Laughlin: Yeah. And I think we also need to say, and this might be alaughable, Come across as a little bit rude, you're probably imminently predictable. We all are, right? So we all sit there and we go, Oh, I just met a friend and we were talking about a holiday and now I'm getting spammed with holiday adverts. My phone must be listening to me.
[00:20:49] No, it doesn't need to because you, what you don't realize is the amount of touch points that you have to data and the amount of data you're sharing within those touch points. And so they don't need to listen to you because they've already predicted what you're going to think before you even think it at times.
[00:21:05] And as this world gets more unconnected, the spider's web gets deeper and deeper. The data gets richer and richer. They'll probably predict you. One, two, three more steps before you've even started to think about something. Because humans are predictable and that we also, unfortunately, quite malleable.
[00:21:23] Harry Kind: That is then a really kind of the upside risk on this, that the huge number of things that a company can do with your data then becomes even more important. How do we then as consumers, as well as looking at what you've got in the investigation, we can't read all the T's and C's. After we've bought a product and then decide, you know what, I'm going to take this TV back to the shop because I don't agree to all of this.
[00:21:50] I mean on, on, particularly on terms of conditions, on permissions, are you able to reject some and accept others? In some cases, but
[00:21:57] Andy Laughlin: largely consent is assumed. It's what we call bound consent. So you get this thing home. You've gone, I want to use the smart features. It said, well, you can't decline them because you want to watch TV, right?
[00:22:07] Yeah. So basically you're locked in
[00:22:10] Harry Kind: and you can't necessarily just pick and choose and say, you know, I have an air fryer I want to be able to start it remotely, but I never want to use the camera feature to do some smart chicken nugget analysis Therefore I'm not going to give that permission. Are they often bundled together?
[00:22:27] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, basically, I mean like you are Effectively locked
[00:22:31] Harry Kind: in
[00:22:32] Andy Laughlin: when you buy a smart model and that's why we do say to people particularly with appliances is Do consider whether that is what you want, you know, because you don't necessarily have to have it. Whereas with a smart TV, it's hard to buy a non smart
[00:22:45] Harry Kind: model.
[00:22:45] This investigation really seems to paint a bleak picture, but also doesn't seem to identify really well behaving organizations, really badly behaving organization. I'm looking at the privacy score here and you're kind of the worst rated one is at 36 percent and the very best was at 51%. It's a, you're playing in that 15% banned.
[00:23:05] Were there a big difference here with the best and the worst behaviors?
[00:23:08] Andy Laughlin: Well, I think, I think nobody has covered themselves in glory. You know, I think what's worth remembering though is they can do better. You can do this more openly, there's ways you can do this more responsibly. And we do know that the information commissioner has a code of practice coming out next year, 2025, when they will, um, hopefully tighten up some of these rules and make clearer people's responsibilities.
[00:23:31] Because there's no reason why. A company can't do better and be more open with you. And you can't just use these products, choose what you want and what you don't want, and stay private wherever you want to, you know?
[00:23:43] Harry Kind: And what else do you think would be good to include on the, from the information commissioner on those guidelines?
[00:23:47] I mean,
[00:23:48] Andy Laughlin: I would say our framework's pretty good. I think there's certain, as I say, some best practices that people can do. I think being as transparent and open with people is really important. Allowing people to meter access. I'm okay with this, not sure about that. Don't really want to share my data here.
[00:24:06] A la carte, rather than the whole set menu. Yeah, why should it be binary yes no? I think they need to be more upfront as well about how they're selling these products. You know, if you're saying, hey, here's a smart model, but by the way, there's a data issue here. If you're not comfortable with that, don't buy a smart model.
[00:24:23] So, transparency, more control, and I think we can all get on better with these products if we do.
[00:24:29] Harry Kind: Do you think people care? This has been something that we, which have been sounding the alarm about a number of organizations have and yet we do Willingly throw that data at companies again and again Do we need to care or is that actually something that governments and regulators need to do for us?
[00:24:47] Andy Laughlin: Well, it's a bit of both, isn't it? But I think there's a kind of a, a slight myth that people don't care. Right. You know, I think when we poll this stuff, you find, yeah, okay, there's probably a third of people who just literally don't care. Just give me the thing, let me move on with my life. There's probably a third who are really engaged, and there's a third in the middle who are disengaged because they don't know what's going on.
[00:25:07] Now if you let those people know, they re engage. Right. So you're probably talking about two thirds are a little bit engaged or very engaged. So it's the majority care. I think anybody who says that people don't care, it's probably been talking to the manufacturers. Yes,
[00:25:26] Harry Kind: and so if you're trying to get as many people as possible to care, that's where it comes down to things like, I suppose, transparency, and actually it's the difference between caring enough to read 200 pages of terms and conditions and caring enough to read a series of very clear, very transparent.
[00:25:42] Data choices. Absolutely. Yeah. So if you are maybe in that third, who would like to have better control of their privacy, what would be your recommendations to them? So I
[00:25:55] Andy Laughlin: think with smart products, you do have a choice. First and foremost, do you want that functionality in your life? And I think people just need to kind of take a pause before they just buy something because it's the top rated or this and that and the other.
[00:26:08] It is smart product. Am I comfortable with that? In some areas you might be able to say, well, actually no I'm not. And then just choose another one. Mm-Hmm. dishwashers. There's plenty of good dishwashers out there. I know for a fact, smart TVs is a bit more tricky and obviously smartphone is kind the point of the product.
[00:26:22] Think about where you're placing these things. If you've got a smart speaker in the bedroom, , just think whether you are really, truly comfortable with that. Yeah, so some of these sort of old kind of common sense. Approaches can really help you can meet some permissions in your phone so you can say I don't want you to access my location all the time or you can limit it in iOS and Android these days and I think you can also take a bit of time and just just maybe even just purely the data collection aspects of the terms and conditions just to understand what you're getting into.
[00:26:53] And you can potentially limit those things.
[00:26:56] Harry Kind: Yeah, I mean, it is a lot to do. I think the framework really is almost like, you could see that being on, in one day on every product, almost like a calorie stamp and allow you to make that comparison. But at the moment, I guess it's, it's very difficult. Do you have plans beyond this investigation for that framework?
[00:27:16] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, I mean, this is our third major investigation into this. I've got no plans to ramp it down. I've got plans to ramp it up. This is a bit of a personal mission of mine, as much as, as, as anything. And I truly believe that it can be better, you know, and that's what witch is here for. Isn't it weird to make positive change?
[00:27:32] We're here to talk about things that nobody else is necessarily talking about, and, um, these products can
[00:27:37] Harry Kind: be better. And have you got any other projects that you're working on at the moment that are coming up soon that people should keep an eye out for?
[00:27:43] Andy Laughlin: Yeah, absolutely. We are actively looking at the car space at the moment.
[00:27:48] It's really important for us. It's got a big data aspect, some cyber security and other things as well. And we're continuing to do all that kind of cyber security. Helping making devices harder to hack is an ongoing project. So there's plenty of other things to, uh, coming up in the pipeline.
[00:28:02] Harry Kind: Well, all of the results of this investigation, the ratings on these products, are available for everybody to see for free on the Witch website, so to check that out, we'll put a link in the description, in the show notes of this podcast, so that you can actually find out, is my air fryer really asking a little bit too much of me?
[00:28:21] Andy, thanks again for joining us, and thanks for a brilliant investigation. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Get Answers. As I mentioned earlier, Andy's work originally featured in The Witch magazine, something you can get at a specially reduced price for podcast listeners. Just visit witch.
[00:28:37] co. uk slash podcast offer to get yourself a membership for 50 percent off the usual price. I'll be back again on Monday, but in the meantime, you can also listen to our other podcasts, Witch Shorts and Witch Money. Just search for them wherever you get your podcast. This episode was presented by me, Harry Kind, and Produced by James Rowe and Rob Lilley Jones, and edited by Eric Breer.
[00:28:56] And thanks again to Andy Loughlin for joining us. We'll be back soon. Bye bye!