Washington, March 15

The maker of a ‘smart’ vibrating sex toy is paying the price for delving too deeply into the private activities of users, without protection.

The Canadian maker of We-Vibe agreed to pay damages of $3.75 million, or up to $10,000 for users whose intimate personal data was collected, in a settlement filed last week for a class-action lawsuit.

At Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it was promoted as a vibrator for couples.

The class-action lawsuit was filed last year in Chicago alleging the parent company Standard Innovation collected ‘highly intimate and sensitive data’ from its Bluetooth-connected app and uploaded the information to its servers in Canada.

As per the lawsuit, the firm ‘intercepted’ data such as each user’s ‘desired vibration intensity level’ and vibration mode or pattern, without consent.

The lawsuit was filed after security researchers at last year’s Defcon hacker event revealed security flaws in vibrator’s mobile app that could allow data to be improperly accessed and could in theory allow someone to take control of the device.

Under the settlement, users of the mobile app may receive up to $10,000 and others who purchased the vibrator $199, court documents showed.

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