I recently added a family member. After registration by the family member the Homey account displayed a specific avatar picture of the family member without consent allowing Homey to use that avatar picture. This is not compliant with legislation. It is also unclear where Homey retrieved that avatar picture from. There is no mention of this in the privacy policy. Homey please elaborate on this breach of privacy.
This is a community forum, if you want to contact Athom send an e-mail to support@athom.com
That said, I’m fairly certain that Homey uses avatars from gravatar.com
Before you do also make sure they definitely didn’t accidentally tap “allow” and weren’t paying attention at the time… With modern Android and IOS i would be quite surprised that would be possible. Especially with Android ., If you want to scratch your ass it has to ask you is it ok… lol
Gravatar is not active and does not contain the specific picture. Neither has there been a ‘allow to use’ question. What else are they doing without telling us is what worries me. The privacy policy states that they use your email address for your account. Not that they search the internet for other information associated with that email address.
It’s still very surprising. What phone OS do they use. Is it the current version of it ?
can you tell us where the picture of the family member came from?
I just tried inviting a new family member on a new email address but nothing suspicious,
yep I could upload a picture but nothing more.
When did the family member first register an Athom/Homey account? (Now used on Shop, Community forum, Support also) I know before (some months ago) the Support site used a Google Account integration.
Have you communicated the above Privacy concern to Athom? (Support)
as this is a community forum as Athom probably isn’t going to answer your concern here.
I didn’t have this experience. Installed sept 2020 and played with accounts this spring.
As I recently wanted a photo avatar, it could only be achieved by using accounts.athom.com.
Android app permissions:
Athom privacy policy
https://legal.athom.com/?document=privacy-policy&language=en
Latest Android version.
No image was provided by the user nor was it requested from the user. I’m a mobile software engineer so I know my way around mobile OS’s. Furthermore the specific image is not associated with the Google account used on the Android device. Removing the image is not possible cause it can only be replaced by another image. Furthermore the account profile can only be managed on the web site not from within the App.
“If you choose to do so”!
The user has not chosen to do so. It was fetched from some source without the users consent.
Can you share the source you expect it to come from so we can verify?
The family member suspects Wordpress but the Gravatar account is deactivated long time ago. The image has been used in the past but is currently no longer is use. So this whole thing becomes even more questionable. I requested Athom to elaborate on this privacy issue.
The account was registered yesterday with a none Gmail email address.
Athom doesn’t just make up an avatar, it has to come from somewhere. My guess is still Gravatar (which is owned by Wordpress, so it wouldn’t surprise me if any unwanted sharing of photos started there).
Only on the Community forum I see an integration option with Gravatar but it looks like if you now first register for Homey your Picture there will be used in the Community Forum.
Did your family register at the Community forum first?
Not Sure Athom does fetch the Gravatar by default (As I didn’t have an Gravatar on the test account.), guess they soon™ will provide an option to reset to default.
I confirm I can’t reset my Homey profile picture now, only change.
I know that Athom doesn’t make up an avatar. But Athom does query some source and does not mention it in the privacy policy. So regardless the source they are doing something without the users’ consent. My guess is also Wordpress but the Gravatar account has been deactivated a while ago. That makes it even more questionable.
No they never visited this forum.
