Amazon’s Ring cameras were allegedly used by employees and third-party contractors to spy on customers. The FTC has filed a complaint against Amazon, which may result in a $5.8 million settlement. Employees had unrestricted access to customer videos and could download, save, and share them. Some employees abused this access, including viewing videos of female users in private areas. Ring made changes to access rights but further abuses occurred. Ring also failed to implement security measures, resulting in security incidents and compromised devices. As part of the settlement, Ring is required to delete customer videos and data collected before 2018. In a separate settlement, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million for failing to protect children’s privacy in relation to Alexa voice recordings and geolocation data.
This is why I don’t own any smart home devices.
It’s insane that Amazon can pay ONLY 5.8 millions and walk away without even admitting guilt
Ditto. It’s for this very reason that I create my own “smart devices” which only have the ability to communicate locally inside my network. When I need to reach them, I do it via a VPN that uses high encryption and specifically tailored non-standard settings.
Trust off the shelf stuff likely made in China inside my home? Uh…that’s a big fat NOPE.