Earlier this year, Anker, the company behind Eufy security cameras, offered its users money in exchange for videos of package and car thefts. The popular security camera maker stated it would pay customers two dollars per video to train its AI systems. The goal was to help its artificial intelligence better detect thieves who steal cars and packages.
The company explained on its website that it needed videos of both real and staged events to ensure it had enough data for training. It even suggested users could create events by pretending to be a thief. The website noted that one act captured by two outdoor cameras simultaneously would make the process efficient. It also mentioned that staging a car door theft could potentially earn a user up to eighty dollars.
Eufy stated that the data collected from these staged events would be used solely for training its AI algorithms and not for any other purpose. This initiative highlights how companies are willing to pay for user data they believe is useful for training AI models. While this allows some users to get value from their own data, it involves significant security and privacy risks.
A recent example involves the viral calling app Neon, which offered money to users who shared recordings and transcripts of their phone calls. TechCrunch discovered that Neon had a security flaw allowing users to access any other user’s data. After being alerted to this security lapse, Neon went offline.
Eufy’s campaign offering two dollars per video for theft footage ran from December 18, 2024, to February 25, 2025. More than one hundred twenty users responded on the campaign’s announcement page stating they had participated. The company’s goal was to collect twenty thousand videos each of package thefts and of people pulling car doors. Users could participate by filling out a Google Form where they uploaded videos and provided their PayPal account for payment.
Eufy did not respond to requests for comment regarding how many users participated, how much money was paid, how many videos were collected, or if the company deleted the collected videos after training its AI.
Since that campaign, Eufy has launched similar initiatives to incentivize customers to send videos for AI training. Through another in-app campaign called the Video Donation Program, Eufy offers users rewards ranging from an Apprentice Medal, which is a badge next to the user’s name in the app, to physical gifts like cameras or gift cards. For this campaign, Eufy is only asking for videos that involve humans.
The Eufy app also displays an Honor Wall that ranks users based on the number of videos they have donated. The top user on this leaderboard has donated over two hundred one thousand videos. In the app’s donation program page, Eufy clarifies that donated videos are only used for AI training and improvement and will not be provided to third parties.
Eufy also asks users to donate videos recorded with the company’s baby monitors. A support page detailing the steps to share these videos does not mention any monetary reward for this type of donation. Eufy did not respond to questions about this particular initiative.
There are reasons to doubt Eufy’s commitments to user privacy. In 2023, The Verge revealed that the company tried to cover up the fact that users’ camera streams, which were advertised as end-to-end encrypted, were actually unencrypted when accessed through its web portal. After an exchange with the tech news site, Anker admitted it had misled users and promised to fix the issue.