BREASTFEEDING your child is, for many, an intimate and private moment. And for those who choose to breastfeed in public (which we totally salute, by the way), it’s a personal decision, made by the mother herself.
But can you imagine what it would feel like if a stranger had hacked into your baby monitor, so they could watch you breastfeed in the privacy of your own home?
One mother was horrified to discover just that, and has shared her “terrible nightmare” of an experience in an emotional Facebook post.
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Jamie Summit was initially pretty pleased with her purchase of a Fredi baby monitor, which she bought from Amazon.
“I saw that it was used with your Wi-Fi so you could access the video feed from your phone (convenient, right?) when you downloaded the app that went with it,” she wrote.
“You could also have multiple people download the app so they could watch. This sounded great especially with my sister-in-law living with us this summer.
“The camera itself is able to be turned 360 degrees and can be moved remotely from the app simply by dragging your finger across your phone screen.”
So far, so good, right?
Except one afternoon Jamie was sitting in the living room with the “only other people who had access” to the baby monitor app, when she noticed something which shook her to the core.
“This afternoon I had the app pulled up and was watching Noah sleep in the bassinet in our room,” she wrote.
“I was in the living room with the only two people who had access (or so I thought) to the monitor. All of a sudden I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the camera was moving … and it was panning over to our bed.
“The exact spot that I breastfeed my son every day. Once the person watching realised I was not in bed, he panned back over to Noah asleep in his bassinet.”
Immediately, Jamie understood what had happened.
“My heart immediately sank into my stomach,” she wrote.
“I realised that this morning the camera was facing our bed when I had last left it facing away from our bed and over at Noah in his bassinet.
“Occasionally Kevin would check in on us while at work to see how the baby was sleeping. I assumed this was the case but Kevin informed me he had not accessed the app all day.
“I feel so violated. This person has watched me day in and day out in the most personal and intimate moments between my son and I. I am supposed to be my son’s protector and have failed miserably. I honestly don’t ever want to go back into my own bedroom.”
Sadly, this is not the first time parents have shared alarming accounts of strangers hacking into their baby monitors.
While Jamie’s monitor was manufactured by the brand FREDI (she has claimed she has tried to reach out to the company, but has received no response) security experts have previously warned many Wi-Fi baby monitors could be at risk.
In fact, in 2015, the security analytics company Rapid7 published a case study of baby monitors and found a number of security vulnerabilities.
If you have a ‘smart’ baby monitor and are concerned for your privacy, follow these steps:
* Make sure you buy a secure device — do your research on any history on it’s internet-able applications
* Set a strong password with a combination of letters and characters — and change it regularly
* Never use the default camera name or password
* When naming your Wi-Fi network, avoid using personal info
* Be sure to register the product when setting it up and update all software
* Turn the device off when not in use.