Amazon settles Ring customer spying complaint

Amazon settles Ring customer spying complaint

US regulators say failure by Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring to take basic security steps resulted in women being 'surveilled' in bedrooms or bathrooms
US regulators say failure by Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring to take basic security steps resulted in women being 'surveilled' in bedrooms or bathrooms. Photo: Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP
Source: AFP

Amazon on Wednesday agreed to pay $30.8 million to settle Ring and Alexa privacy complaints filed by US regulators, including accusations that employees spied on female customers, according to court documents.

The Federal Trade Commission charged Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring with failing to implement basic protections to stop hackers or employees from accessing people's devices or accounts.

According to the FTC complaint, Ring's failures in security resulted in "egregious" violations of privacy such as female users of home security cameras being "surveilled" in bedrooms or bathrooms.

"Ring's disregard for privacy and security exposed consumers to spying and harassment," FTC bureau of consumer protection director Samuel Levine said in a statement.

Under a proposed order, which requires approval by a federal judge, Ring will delete any data unlawfully viewed and ramp up security with features such as multi-factor authentication.

Read also

US judge allows potential damages for distress of Boeing MAX victims

Hackers exploited vulnerabilities to not only access video streams but also to take control of cameras to taunt children, sexually proposition people, and threaten a family with harm if they didn't pay a ransom, according to the FTC.

PAY ATTENTION: Share your outstanding story with our editors! Please reach us through info@corp.legit.ng!

Ring will pay $5.8 million as part of the settlement, the proposed order indicated.

"Ring promptly addressed these issues on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry," Ring said in response to an AFP inquiry, adding that it disagrees with the allegations.

Amazon will pay an additional $25 million as part of a separate deal to settle FTC accusations that children's voice recordings captured by Alexa smart speakers were kept when they should have been deleted, according to the regulator.

US law "does not allow companies to keep children's data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms," Levine said.

Amazon will identify and delete any personal information it has kept from child profiles that are no longer active, a proposed order stated.

Source: AFP

Authors:
AFP avatar

AFP AFP text, photo, graphic, audio or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer or otherwise except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service, AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, videos, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP material. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP material.