Two separate settlements are pending between the Federal Trade Commission and Ring (who is owned by Amazon) that would together require Amazon to pay over $30 million in fines and customer refunds. Both lawsuits accuse Ring of privacy invasions and lax security measures over customer data.
In a press release last week, the FTC alleges that Ring employees had unfettered access to footage from users’ cameras prior to September 2017. “Ring gave every employee—as well as hundreds of Ukraine-based third-party contractors—full access to every customer video, regardless of whether the employee or contractor actually needed that access to perform his or her job function,” the FTC said. A pending settlement of this lawsuit would see Ring be required to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds, as well as implement stricter privacy and security features.
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A separate lawsuit, also announced last week, saw the US Department of Justice and the FTC allege that Amazon violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by keeping kids’ Alexa voice recordings forever and undermining parents’ deletion requests.” A pending settlement for this lawsuit would see Amazon pay a fine of $25 million, as well as delete footage, data, and enact stricter privacy and security features.
Amazon denies the allegations, with a spokesperson stating, “Ring promptly addressed the issues at hand on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry. Our focus has been and remains on delivering products and features our customers love, while upholding our commitment to protect their privacy and security.”
