The smart lock could be operated without identification, using a code. It’s not clear to me that this code was unique per user.

This does not look like a privacy win to me. It looks like a good precedent that will aid in a privacy court battle in the future.

> The smart lock could be operated without identification, using a code. It’s not clear to me that this code was unique per user.

"It's not clear to me that this is true" is different from "this is false".

(Also note that the only evidence in the article even for the existence of the code, let alone the question of whether or not it identifies the tenant, is an attorney's claim; in the article, it is not denied, but nor does anyone else confirm it. For example, the attorney's claim is perfectly consistent with the possibility that there is a code, but that the landlord did not inform tenants of it, or would not provide it to them.)

> This does not look like a privacy win to me. It looks like a good precedent that will aid in a privacy court battle in the future.

But the article says:

> It won't set a legal precedent because it's a settlement, but it represents a win for tenants who had issues with smart locks and landlords installing them against their will.

From the sounds of the lock being referenced here, it was not what we usually refer to as a "Smart" lock. It was a simple code keypad. This whole discussion is based on a misnomer applied by a reporter who is neither a tech expert nor a locksmith.

I stayed in an AirBnB recently and the owner installed a smart lock while I was there. Assigning a unique code for each user is the entire point; you can invalidate the code once their lease is up, rather than worrying about the keys getting returned or copied.