Air fryers are without a doubt the must-have kitchen gadget at the moment, with celebrities from Sir Mo Farah to Drew Barrymore confessing their love for them.
The appliance uses hot air rather than hot oil to cook foods, offering a quick and healthy alternative to deep-fat fryers.
However, new research might have you reaching for the oven instead.
Experts from Which? have warned that several popular air fryers are spying on unsuspecting users.
The consumer champion analysed three air fryers sold in the UK and found that all three demanded permissions to listen in on users’ conversations.
‘Our research shows how smart tech manufacturers and the firms they work with are currently able to collect data from consumers, seemingly with reckless abandon, and this is often done with little or no transparency,’ said Harry Rose, Which? magazine editor.
The findings follow a string of terrifying stories of the kitchen must-have, which can be bought for as little as £25, suddenly bursting into flames.
For example, Rebecca Sim, 52, from Manchester, last year revealed how her one-year-old Tower fryer ‘could have burnt down the kitchen’.
Experts from Which? have warned that several popular air fryers including the Aigostar (pictured) are spying on unsuspecting users
For the analysis, Which? rated three air fryers across six categories – consent, transparency, data security, data minimisation, trackers, and data deletion
For the analysis, Which? rated three air fryers across six categories – consent, transparency, data security, data minimisation, trackers, and data deletion.
Based on these ratings, the researchers gave each product an overall privacy score.
The analysis revealed that all three products – Aigostar, Xiaomi Mi Smart, and Cosori CAF-LI401S – knew their customers’ precise location, and wanted permission to record audio on the user’s phone.
The Xiaomi app linked to its air fryer connected to trackers from Facebook, Pangle (the ad network of TikTok for Business), and Chinese tech giant Tencent (depending on the location of the user), while the Aigostar air fryer wanted to know the user’s gender and date of birth when setting up an account.
Meanwhile, both the Aigostar and Xiaomi air fryers sent personal data to servers in China – although this was flagged in the privacy notice.
In response, a Xiaomi spokesperson said: ‘The permission to record audio on Xiaomi Home app is not applicable to Xiaomi Smart Air Fryer which does not operate directly through voice commands and video chat.’
A Cosori spokesperson added: ‘We prioritize privacy, and subject to our internal compliance requirements, the smart products must comply with GDPR.’
Aigostar did not respond to a request for comment.
Beyond the issues with air fryers spying on you, data suggests that the number of fires caused by air fryers is higher than ever.Â
Firefighters must document the cause of a blaze on their Incident Recording System (IRS) which collects the data that can then be used to help fire services know the latest dangers they face and how best to deal with them.
To document the cause of a fire on the IRS they must choose from a list of options – but air fryer is not on that list.
Data released by the Home Office shows a six fold increase in the number of times the word ‘air fryer’ was mentioned in the additional free text box on the IRS in the last two years.
In that time, the trendy gadgets became the third most used appliance in UK kitchens.
But the additional text mentions are not an accurate way to track air fryer fires as some could be merely incidental. For example, additional text recorded by a crew might state: ‘Fortunately, the fire didn’t reach the air fryer.’