Vibrator company will delete the personal data it snooped from you

Here are some words to live by: Don't make data-collecting vibrators. Better yet, don't connect sex toys to the internet at all.

Standard Innovation, the maker of digitally-enabled vibrator the We-Vibe 4 Plus, has learnt the hard way. On Thursday, it settled a U.S. privacy violation suit to the tune of $3.75 million (A$4.95 million).

The story began in Aug. 2016, when two hackers at the Def Con conference in Las Vegas demonstrated how the vibrator sent personal information such as device temperature and vibration intensity back to its manufacturer. Not long after, a privacy violation lawsuit was filed against the Canadian company in an Illinois federal court.

One of the two plaintiffs, known only as N.P., alleged the device broke privacy and consumer protection laws by collecting "highly sensitive personally identifiable information" without notifying her. She also claimed time, data and usage data was sent, attached to the user's email address, to the company's Canadian servers.

Marketed as the "No. 1 couples vibrator," the vibrator connects to an app called We-Connect, which can be used to control the vibrator's mode and intensity remotely.

After the Def Con revelations, Frank Ferrari, president of Standard Innovation, argued the products recorded temperature "purely for hardware diagnostic purposes," but said the company was reviewing its privacy and data collection policies.

In the class action settlement agreement, the company has agreed to increase its privacy standards and to destroy the information it's already collected, including "the time and date of each use, the vibration intensity level selected by the user, the vibration mode or pattern selected by the user, the temperature of the device, and battery life."

Although it denies wrongdoing, Standard Innovation will also pay out up to $10,000 (A$13,238) to those who downloaded the We-Connect the app and used it with the vibrator before Sept. 26, 2016, as well as $199 (A$263) to those who purchased a Bluetooth-enabled We-Vibe product.

A Standard Innovation spokesperson said the company was pleased to have reached "a fair and reasonable settlement."

"At Standard Innovation we take customer privacy and data security seriously," he said. "We have enhanced our privacy notice, increased app security, provided customers more choice in the data they share, and we continue to work with leading privacy and security experts to improve the app."

Working in such an intimate business, perhaps they should consider leaving their vibrators offline all together. Data-mining is not exactly a turn-on.

Standard Innovation has been approached for comment about whether the data policy outlined in the settlement will apply for users outside the United States.