Mozilla researchers urge lone users not to trust machines with their personal data.
On February 14, Valentine's Day, researchers from Mozilla published another report as part of the Privacy Not Included series of publications , in which experts revealed that most of the applications available on the market for romantic correspondence with chatbots do not meet modern security and privacy standards.
With the development of generative artificial intelligence, a real boom of chatbots for "relationships" began, offering company to lonely hearts. Moreover, such neurotransmissions are often not only romantic, but also erotic in nature.
Misha Rykov, a researcher at Mozilla, spoke sharply about such hobbies: "To be honest, AI girlfriends are not your friends. While they promise to improve your mental health, they actually contribute to addiction, loneliness, and toxicity, while extracting as much data from you as possible."
As a result of evaluating 11 popular chatbots for romantic correspondence, including applications such as "Romantic AI", "Talkie Soulful AI" and "EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate", all of them received a Privacy Not Included mark from Mozilla, which distinguishes them as one of the most problematic in terms of privacy.
Screenshots from the "EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate" app, where the chat bot literally asks the user for their photos and voice messages.
Among the main security and privacy issues identified in the study, Mozilla experts note the lack of public information about how security vulnerabilities are managed (73%), unclear data about encryption use (64%), allowing the use of weak passwords, including "11111" (45%), selling user data or using it for targeted advertising without sufficiently clear information in the privacy policy (90%), and a ban on deleting personal data (54%).
Jen Caltrider, director of the Privacy Not Included program, cautions: "Today we are facing the wild west of neurogenerative chatbots for relationships. Their popularity is growing at an explosive pace, and the amount of personal information they extract to create romantic, friendly, and intimate interactions is truly enormous."
Caltrider emphasizes the need to increase transparency and give users much more control over such AI services in order to prevent potential manipulation and protect personal data.
Thus, chatbots for romantic relationships, which are becoming more popular every day, pose serious risks to the security and privacy of users. These apps collect a large amount of personal data, including photos and audio, which can also be used as biometrics, but do not provide sufficient information about how they process and protect this information.
Users should exercise caution and be critical of such chatbots in order to prevent the leakage of sensitive data, as well as to prevent abuse and manipulation by intruders who can get their hands on this data.
On February 14, Valentine's Day, researchers from Mozilla published another report as part of the Privacy Not Included series of publications , in which experts revealed that most of the applications available on the market for romantic correspondence with chatbots do not meet modern security and privacy standards.
With the development of generative artificial intelligence, a real boom of chatbots for "relationships" began, offering company to lonely hearts. Moreover, such neurotransmissions are often not only romantic, but also erotic in nature.
Misha Rykov, a researcher at Mozilla, spoke sharply about such hobbies: "To be honest, AI girlfriends are not your friends. While they promise to improve your mental health, they actually contribute to addiction, loneliness, and toxicity, while extracting as much data from you as possible."
As a result of evaluating 11 popular chatbots for romantic correspondence, including applications such as "Romantic AI", "Talkie Soulful AI" and "EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate", all of them received a Privacy Not Included mark from Mozilla, which distinguishes them as one of the most problematic in terms of privacy.
Screenshots from the "EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate" app, where the chat bot literally asks the user for their photos and voice messages.
Among the main security and privacy issues identified in the study, Mozilla experts note the lack of public information about how security vulnerabilities are managed (73%), unclear data about encryption use (64%), allowing the use of weak passwords, including "11111" (45%), selling user data or using it for targeted advertising without sufficiently clear information in the privacy policy (90%), and a ban on deleting personal data (54%).
Jen Caltrider, director of the Privacy Not Included program, cautions: "Today we are facing the wild west of neurogenerative chatbots for relationships. Their popularity is growing at an explosive pace, and the amount of personal information they extract to create romantic, friendly, and intimate interactions is truly enormous."
Caltrider emphasizes the need to increase transparency and give users much more control over such AI services in order to prevent potential manipulation and protect personal data.
Thus, chatbots for romantic relationships, which are becoming more popular every day, pose serious risks to the security and privacy of users. These apps collect a large amount of personal data, including photos and audio, which can also be used as biometrics, but do not provide sufficient information about how they process and protect this information.
Users should exercise caution and be critical of such chatbots in order to prevent the leakage of sensitive data, as well as to prevent abuse and manipulation by intruders who can get their hands on this data.
