Are your gadgets watching you? How to give the gift of privacy

The season of holiday gift buying is upon us, and it can be hard to resist the coolest new tech gadgets. But not all items are created equal when it comes to privacy, experts say.

Police have accessed user video footage 11 times in 2022 without consent, according to a letter Amazon sent to the Democratic Massachusetts senatorEd Markey.

Privacy implications: The thing to remember about Google is that its main revenue stream is advertising, and collecting information about you is the best way to target those ads. In addition, the company receives tens of thousands of requests from government agencies every year because of the vast amounts of data it maintains on users.

What it is: The possibility of unlocking secrets about our health or ancestry means companies like 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and AncestryDNA are as popular as ever. But just how private is sharing a DNA sample?

Privacy implications: These companies handle arguably the most personal information about you, and there is a real possibility that information could be shared with third-party advertisers, researchers and even law enforcement. For instance, Ancestry and 23andMe share anonymized data from consenting users with researchers. 23andMe, for its part, said it vetted all vendors for privacy and security safeguards including whether they respond to law enforcement requests.