'Your data is not going to leave the US' – iRobot CEO reassures Roomba owners following takeover by Chinese company

Following years of financial struggles, iRobot – the brand behind the first commercially successful robot vacuum, Roomba – has been taken over by Chinese contract manufacturing company Picea.

Shortly after the news broke, company co-founder Helen Greiner said in an interview with Bloomberg that she found it "bizarre" there hadn't been a big public outcry that iRobot's data and information "will belong to a Chinese company" [quote at 7.50].

When I caught up with iRobot's current CEO Gary Cohen after news of the deal broke, he told me that would not be happening. "We protect the data. The data is staying on our servers in the US. Our servers are protected in the US. Our European data stays in the US. The data is protected, it's encrypted," he explained.

I was assured Helen's statement wasn't in line with the reality of the situation, and how iRobot – or other similar kinds of companies – handled customer data. "Nobody's going to break into the data. But more importantly, the data is sitting on the Amazon servers, and it's going to be protected, and it's not going to leave the US."

Cohen directed me towards the security statements posted on the company website (I couldn't access the US policy at the time of writing, but the UK policy was available to read), and assured me that customers could easily delete their names from iRobot's roster if they wanted to.

"We protect their data. It's all encrypted, and that's how we run the business," he told me. "We are the most secure of anybody, and we actually have won awards because of our ability to protect the data, to protect [against] breaches, but more importantly, to protect the data in terms of where it's housed."

No change

A further statement sent to me from iRobot on the topic reads: "There have been no changes made to how iRobot collects, maintains, stores, or uses personal information in connection with the reorganization transaction, and we do not expect any such changes. Any updates to our existing data processing or security activities will always be made in accordance with our online Privacy Policy (found here) and applicable laws."

Cohen also confirmed to me that current Roomba owners didn't need to worry about product and app support for their robovacs, and that it would be "business as usual" in the immediate wake of the takeover. Beyond that, he's feeling very optimistic about iRobot's future with Picea. Watch this space.

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