Former Ring worker ‘SPIED on women via cameras in their bedrooms and bathrooms for months’ shock privacy case claims

A FORMER Ring worker spied on female customers through cameras set up in their bedrooms and bathrooms for months in 2017, according to a US court filing.

The US’ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused the home-security company of compromising customers’ privacy by allowing “any employee or contractor to access their private videos”.

Amazon, which purchased Ring in April 2018, pledged to make some changes in its practicesCredit: Getty – Contributor

“The complaint says that one employee over several months viewed thousands of video recordings of female users of Ring cameras that surveilled intimate spaces in their homes such as their bathrooms or bedrooms, and wasn’t stopped until another employee discovered the misconduct,” the FTC wrote on Twitter.

The trade body also called Ring’s attempts to protect customers’ accounts, cameras and videos from hackers “sloppy”.

In a series of tweets, the FTC claimed that Ring “also failed to implement basic privacy and security protections which enabled hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras and videos.”

Ring has been ordered to pay a fine of $5.8million (£4.6million) as a result.

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Under the FTC’s proposed order, which must first be approved by a federal court, Amazon-owned Ring will also be required to delete data from videos it unlawfully reviewed, as well as be forced to implement more stringent security controls on human review of videos.

This plans to include a multi-factor authentication for both employee and customer accounts.

Amazon, which purchased Ring in April 2018, pledged to make some changes in its practices.

While onlookers are largely unsurprised by the invasion of privacy, they say the fine isn’t enough.

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“$5.8M is absolutely nothing to Amazon, just the cost of doing business as they say,” said one person on Twitter.

“Until you start imposing stricter fines, companies like them wont be deterred from this kind of behaviour and the consumers will get nothing in return for having their rights and privacy violated.”

Another said: “If that’s all the consequences they face, then it’s not a punishment, it’s just an added cost.”

“Be careful who/what you let in your personal space,” a third person tweeted.

“These are tools but they aren’t completely under your control. There are trade-offs. If you value your privacy, sometimes that comes at the cost of convenience.

Amazon has also agreed to pay $25million (£20million) to settle allegations it violated children’s privacy rights when it failed to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary, according to a court filing in federal court that outlined a separate settlement.

Amazon said in a statement: “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.”