Google Home it is! While we purchase video doorbells and security cameras to feel safer at home, it seems that is not always the case as the device built to keep us safe is the one being compromised.
According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, employees of Ring had access to private videos of customers in their bedrooms and bathrooms! One employee is alleged to have viewed thousands of videos belonging to women and fellow female employees.
“Ring’s disregard for privacy and security exposed consumers to spying and harassment,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC’s order makes clear that putting profit over privacy doesn’t pay.”
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In the filing, it notes that “The employee focused his prurient searches on cameras with names indicating that they surveilled an intimate space, such as ‘Master Bedroom,’ ‘Master Bathroom,’ or ‘Spy Cam.’ On hundreds of occasions during this three-month period, the employee perused female customers’ and employees’ videos, often for an hour or more each day. Undetected by Ring, the employee continued spying for months.”
Apparently, a supervisor noticed the employee engaging with videos of pretty girls in 2017 and that is when he was fired. He also reportedly viewed videos of a fellow female employee without her knowledge.
Ring had not disclosed the broad accessibility employees have to customers’ videos.
Ring also failed to address security concerns and prevent cyber attacks back in 2020 and did not make customers aware of the breaches. Women and children were reportedly being verbally attacked through the ring products as a result of these cyber breaches.
“During the course of these attacks, approximately 55,000 U.S. customers suffered serious account compromises,” the complaint writes. “For at least 910 U.S. accounts (affecting approximately 1,250 devices), the bad actor not only accessed the accounts, but took additional invasive actions, such as accessing a stored video, accessing a live stream video, or viewing a customer’s profile. The bad actors disproportionately targeted indoor cameras. Even though indoor cameras are a relatively small subset of Ring’s product offerings, approximately 500 of the 1,250 compromised devices in the U.S. (i.e., approximately 40% of the compromised devices in the U.S.) were Stick Up Cams or Indoor Cams, both of which Defendant markets for indoor use.”
Ring was sold to Amazon in 2018, in response to the complaint, Amazon agreed Wednesday to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds for the privacy violations with its ring doorbells.