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HP Sued Over Printers That Won’t Scan or Fax When Ink Is Low

Two consumers who bought Hewlett-Packard (HP) all-in-one printers are suing the company after they discovered that their machines would not scan or fax when it was low on ink or empty.

HP all-in-one

Of course, neither scanning nor faxing requires any ink in order to accomplish those tasks.

This case is essentially similar to a complaint filed against Canon last year where a consumer claimed that his printer stopped scanning when his ink cartridges were low or empty. [See story.]

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The lawsuit against HP claims:

6. What HP fails to disclose is that, if even one of the ink cartridges is too low or empty, the scanning function on the “all-in-one” printer will be disabled and will not work as advertised (hereinafter, the “Design Flaw”).

7. None of HP’s advertising or marketing materials disclose the basic fact that its All-in-One Printers do not scan documents when the devices have low or empty ink cartridges.

12. HP’s intent is clear, namely, to have their multi-function devices revert to an inoperable “error state” so that a large subset of those multi-function device purchasers will purchase additional overpriced and unnecessary ink cartridges in order to be able to scan and to fax documents. The end goal is to increase the sales of one HP’s largest profit makers, ink.

So the consumers are suing for misrepresentation, breach of warranty, and unfair or deceptive practices.

A related issue alleges that some HP all-in-one printers won’t scan when their ink cartridges have plenty of ink but have expired. That was reported by two of our readers last year but is not raised in this lawsuit.

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Does Spectrum Capture Your Voice Then Secretly Use It for ID Purposes?

Biometric Voice PatternA regular Consumer World reader from Florida who we’ll call N.W. recently wrote to us about a disturbing discovery when she called the technical support department of Spectrum, her cable provider.

Rather than ask a whole series of verification questions when first connected, N.W. explained that the representative immediately identified her by her voice. She asked how this was possible, and was told that customers’ voices are recorded for Spectrum’s use. One of the newest uses is to digitize a person’s voice and speech pattern to create a unique digital identity or voiceprint that can act like an automatic password when they call again.

According to our consumer, Spectrum claimed they had notified her about their new Voice ID security system via email, but when she inquired what email address they had on record for her, they admitted they had none.

N.W. is a very privacy- and security-sensitive person and was distressed by Spectrum’s use of this technology without her knowledge or affirmative consent.

According to a press release and a fact sheet that Spectrum issued last May at the launch of the feature, Voice ID was supposed to be an “optional” and “completely voluntary” service.

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Spectrum optional

Spectrum voluntary

Obviously, their Voice ID system only works if the company can hear or record the customer’s voice and then analyze it. Most companies’ customer service lines announce that “your call may be monitored or recorded for training or quality control purposes.” Anecdotally, Spectrum may not always do this in all cases, but it has a disclosure in its terms of service:

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a. Recording of Communications. Subscriber acknowledges and agrees that all communications between Subscriber and Spectrum may be recorded or monitored by Spectrum for quality assurance or other purposes [emphasis added] subject to applicable law.

To get a straight answer as to what happened in N.W.’s case (and perhaps to others), we asked the PR folks at Charter Communications, the cable operator that provides Spectrum service. It has over 31 million customers in 41 states.

After doing their research, N.W. got a call from Spectrum. According to her, the Spectrum rep admitted that the company had recorded voices for Voice ID without customers’ knowledge and consent, they were very apologetic, and said there was no excuse for what happened.

So could N.W. be the only customer they did this to? We asked the company how widespread the problem was, why it was done without consent, whether reps were incentivized to enroll customers in Voice ID, and what were they going to do now to remedy the situation. They issued this short statement but declined to comment further:

“We take customer security and privacy very seriously and our policy is, and always has been, to obtain customer consent prior to enrollment in Voice ID. In the event the enrollment is disputed, we will remediate the situation immediately by unenrolling the customer and deleting their voice file, as has been done in this instance.”

From a legal standpoint, there are two key issues. Does Spectrum properly alert callers when they are recording or monitoring customer conversations and the reasons for doing so? And did Spectrum enroll other customers in Voice ID without permission? The strongest biometric protection laws (that govern a third party’s use of your fingerprint, iris scan, voice, face, etc.) prohibit collecting and using such identifiers without first notifying the subjects and getting their affirmative consent. And remember that in Spectrum’s case, they explicitly told customers they would not enable Voice ID without permission.

As of mid-2021, five states (Illinois, Arkansas, California, Texas, and Washington) had specific laws governing biometrics. Some other states apply their generic privacy laws to biometric issues, while still others have pending legislation on the subject. (See state list.)

So how do you feel about a company recording your voice, and creating and using a voiceprint to identify you? Should you have to give your permission for them to do this? And do you think that N.W. was the only customer who was involuntarily opted into Voice ID? Enter your comments below.

And, as an experiment, if you have Spectrum service, considering calling customer service and asking if Voice ID is or is not enabled on your account. You can report your results here.

For an interesting article on the commercial use of your voice, check out Professor Joseph Turow’s opinion piece recently published in the New York Times.

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Apple’s New OS Predicts Your Impending Death

The new Mac operating system dubbed “Monterey” debuts this week, but apparently not all its new features will be ready for release until later this fall. And that delay has led to the unfortunate placement of an asterisk in their promotional material.

One improvement being made is an enhancement to Apple ID which will help a family member or loved one access your account in case you suddenly pass away without having left your password behind.

Apple death

That little asterisk at the end, however, has sent a chill through Mac owners’ bones and created a sense of sudden urgency. Down the page, it leads to this surprising disclosure.

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Apple death coming soon

What does Apple know that even your doctor doesn’t?