Google restricts Xiaomi access to Nest Hub, Assistant after it shows images from stranger's home

Update: Xiaomi has issued a statement on the issue. This report has been updated with the response. Security cameras are supposed to help you keep an eye on things at your home, ensure its safety and ‘privacy’. But imagine, the same camera violates your privacy and security and shares footage of your home with an unknown person, without your permission! Google has reportedly killed Xiaomi access to its Nest Hub and Assistant after a user reported that his device showed still images from someone unknown’s home. As per the Android Police report, the Reddit user, /r/Dio-V, owns a Xiaomi Mijia 1080p Smart IP Security Camera. He shared a video on Reddit showing that his Google Nest Hub (connected to Xiaomi security camera) showed images of some random person’s house. How is Google involved here is that this Xiaomi camera was also linked to the Google account of the user. He also stated that both Nest Hub and the camera are new. [caption id=“attachment_7854491” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Image: Pixabay[/caption] In the images and video shared by the Reddit user, you can see a still from someone’s room where a man is sleeping, another shows an image of a sleeping baby, one shows a kid playing with toys. Can it get any creepier? [caption id=“attachment_7854521” align=“alignnone” width=“728”] Image: Reddit[/caption] The user reportedly says that the images that are showing on his Nest Hub show a different time zone than his own. A Cnet report states that the user is from Netherlands. [caption id=“attachment_7854541” align=“alignnone” width=“329”] Image: Reddit[/caption] This incident might have something to do with the Google Assistant or Google Nest Hub. When contacted by Android Police regarding the query, Google in a statement said, “We’re aware of the issue and are in contact with Xiaomi to work on a fix. In the meantime, we’re disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices.” To this, the Reddit user reportedly confirmed that his Nest Hub is no longer working on his Xiaomi camera. Xiaomi spokesperson said in a statement, “Xiaomi has always prioritised our users’ privacy and information security. We are aware there was an issue of receiving stills while connecting Mi Home Security Camera Basic 1080p on Google Home hub. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused to our users.  Our team has since acted immediately to solve the issue and it is now fixed. Upon investigation, we have found out the issue was caused by a cache update on 26 December 2019, which was designed to improve camera streaming quality. This has only happened in extremely rare conditions. In this case, it happened during the integration between Mi Home Security Camera Basic 1080p and the Google Home Hub with a display screen under poor network conditions. We have also found 1044 users were with such integrations and only a few with extremely poor network conditions might be affected. This issue will not happen if the camera is linked to the Xiaomi’s Mi Home app. Xiaomi has communicated and fixed this issue with Google, and has also suspended this service until the root cause has been completely solved, to ensure that such issues will not happen again.”