Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon has agreed to a $5.8 million settlement with US Federal Trade Commission after a former employee of its Ring doorbell camera unit was caught spying for months on female customers in 2017, through cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms.
The FTC in its complaint stated the employee viewed videos made by at least 81 female customers and Ring employees using Ring products.
“Undetected by Ring, the employee continued spying for months,” the FTC said, adding, “Ring’s disregard for privacy and security exposed consumers to spying and harassment.”
It was only after a colleague noticed the misconduct that the lid was blown over the scandal and the employee was terminated from the job.
“As a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data.”
It added that hackers were able to lay their hands on the sensitive media. Not only were they able to access video streams but also take control of cameras to exploit minors, threaten families and demand ransom if they didn’t want private images, or videos leaked.
Amazon will pay an additional $25 million
Apart from the $5.8 million settlement, Amazon also agreed to pay $25 million after Alexa (virtual assistant technology) was found violating the privacy rights of children. FTC found that Alexa failed to delete recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary.
“The unlawfully retained voice recordings provided Amazon with a valuable database for training the Alexa algorithm to understand children, benefiting its bottom line at the expense of children’s privacy,” the FTC said.
“While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us.”
Despite a cumulative fine of $30 million, the sum pales in comparison to Amazon’s $3.2 billion first-quarter profit. However, FTC’s stern stance and action on a multinational company are expected to send a message to the big tech companies who have been running away from accountability for a long time.
(With inputs from agencies)
