Fact Check: Yes, photos taken by Roomba robot vacuums made their way online in 2020
Claim:
In 2020, photos of people inside their homes taken by Roomba robot vacuums appeared on social media.
Rating:
Context:
The Roombas in question were not commercially available — they were development robots given to testers. However, several researchers have uncovered privacy issues with robot vacuums produced by several different manufacturers.
In December 2022, MIT Technology Review published an article, titled, "A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?" The article explained exactly what its headline stated — that in 2020, photos taken by Roomba robot vacuums, some of which could be viewed as potentially compromising, made their way onto Facebook.
A viral video posted to Facebook in May 2025 re-upped interest in the story, and Snopes readers searched the site wondering if it was true. It was.
The story was published in a highly trusted magazine, cited several security experts, and included a comment from iRobot, the manufacturer of the Roomba, confirming that the images found online were taken on Roomba robots in 2020. Snopes reached out to iRobot for comment on the story. A spokesperson directed us to the MIT Technology Review article.
According to a statement from iRobot in the article, the photos in question were not taken by commercially available Roombas, however. Instead, they were from "special development robots with hardware and software modifications that are not and never were present on iRobot consumer products for purchase"; owned by "paid collectors and employees," who the company said signed agreements acknowledging that the robots would be capturing photos and videos for training; and that featured a "bright green sticker that read 'video recording in progress.'"
According to the story, the vacuums took pictures of their surroundings for the purpose of training artificial intelligence models. In order for a robot to understand what it's looking at, however, a human first needs to tell the robot what various objects are. iRobot outsourced that work to a company called ScaleAI, which contracts workers around the world to look at a photo and label what's in it, according to the article. That's how workers from Venezuela got their hands on the photos and how they made their way onto social media.
MIT Technology Review wrote that iRobot did not allow them to see the consent forms, and the company did not allow reporters to speak with any of the employees or paid collectors. In a follow-up story, however, several individuals who tested the special robots told MIT Technology Review they felt misled by the consent agreement they signed and were concerned about how iRobot used their data.
It is important to note that in this case, the robots were not commercially available, and whether or not iRobot breached its data privacy agreement, the robots were labeled as being able to take photo and video. IRobot's privacy policy contains the following section on how it uses data from Roombas:
Some of our devices are equipped with "smart technology" that can wirelessly send us data. These devices include, but are not limited to:
If you have one of these devices, we may collect information about your:
This data is stored in a deidentified state (separated from identifiable information).
But because most robot vacuums connect to Wi-Fi, have cameras (and some have speakers and/or microphones), there are several valid security concerns about robot vacuums — give experienced hackers enough time and they'll probably find a way to get into a system.
In 2020, for instance, researchers at the University of Maryland were able to record audio using a "laser-based navigation system" that vacuum robots use to determine where objects are.
More recently, Dennis Giese, an independent researcher who tears down and hacks robot vacuums in his spare time, helped the Australian Broadcasting Corporation hack into an Ecovacs Deebot X2 in 2024 — earlier that year, according to a separate ABC article, several Ecovacs robots were hacked in cities across America, and shouted racial slurs at their owners.
- YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wUsM0Mlenc. Accessed 9 May 2025.
"A Roomba Recorded a Woman on the Toilet. How Did Screenshots End up on Facebook?" MIT Technology Review, https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/. Accessed 9 May 2025.
"Could Your Vacuum Be Listening to You?" Maryland Today, 18 Nov. 2020, https://today.umd.edu/could-your-vacuum-be-listening-you-26e8f802-1e1f-4d11-ad18-a397cf860c94.
Dennis's Homepage. https://dontvacuum.me/. Accessed 9 May 2025.
Giese, Dennis. Vacuum Robot Security and Privacy. 2023. media.ccc.de, https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2023-57158-vacuum_robot_security_and_privacy.
"Hackers Take Control of Robot Vacuums in Multiple US Cities and Abuse Owners." ABC News, 10 Oct. 2024. www.abc.net.au, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-11/robot-vacuum-yells-racial-slurs-at-family-after-being-hacked/104445408.
Pringle, Eleanor. "A Roomba Photographed a Woman on the Toilet and It Ended up on Social Media." Fortune, https://fortune.com/2023/01/18/artificial-intelligence-in-our-homes-roomba-photographed-woman-on-toilet-posted-on-social-media/. Accessed 9 May 2025.
Privacy Policy | iRobot. https://www.irobot.com/en_US/legal/privacy-policy.html#bookmark23. Accessed 9 May 2025.
"Roomba Testers Feel Misled after Intimate Images Ended up on Facebook." MIT Technology Review, https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/10/1066500/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuum-beta-product-testers-consent-agreement-misled/. Accessed 9 May 2025.
"The World's Largest Home Robotics Company Has a Problem – Its Vacuum Cleaners Can Be Hacked from Afar." ABC News, 3 Oct. 2024. www.abc.net.au, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-04/robot-vacuum-hacked-photos-camera-audio/104414020.
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