Privacy advocates blasted Amazon's recently announced purchase of robot vacuum maker iRobot for fueling'pervasive surveillance' as the Federal Trade Commission opened a probe into the $1.7 billion buyout. The tech giant's planned acquisition of the maker of Roomba vacuum cleaners will give it access to the appliance's operating system that uses a front-facing camera to create complete maps of the inside of people's homes - all of which can then be fed into Amazon's existing, massive trove of data about hundreds of millions of consumers. 'There is no more private space than the home. Yet with this acquisition, Amazon stands to gain access to extremely intimate acts in our most private spaces that are not available through other means, or to other competitors,' over twenty privacy and civil rights groups say in a Friday letter to the FTC. 'Information collected by iRobot's devices goes beyond home floor plans, and includes highly detailed information about the interiors of consumers' homes and the schedules and lifestyles of the inhabitants,' the letter, shared by digital rights nonprofit Fight for the Future, states.

A growing backlash against face recognition suggests the technology has a reached a crucial tipping point, as battles over its use are erupting on numerous fronts. Face-tracking cameras have been trialled in public by at least three UK police forces in the last four years. A court case against one force, South Wales Police, began earlier this week, backed by human rights group Liberty. Ed Bridges, an office worker from Cardiff whose image was captured during a test in 2017, says the technology is an unlawful violation of privacy, an accusation the police force denies. Avoiding the camera's gaze has got others in trouble.