Amazon’s Ring doorbell unit has agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission $5.8 million (£4.7 million) in a settlement over privacy violations.
It comes after the FTC filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that Ring violated a portion of the FTC Act that fights unfair or deceptive business practices.
While Ring says its products help keep customers safer with its doorbell security cameras, the FTC claimed that Ring instead comprised customer information by giving third-party contractors access to customer videos, even when it was unnecessary to perform their jobs.
As part of the proposed settlement, Ring will also be required to delete any customer videos and data collected from an individual’s face, referred to as “face embeddings,” that it obtained prior to 2018.
It must also delete any work products derived from those videos.
According to the FTC's lawsuit, Ring neglected information security considerations for the sake of growth.
Prior to September 2017, Ring granted unrestricted access to customer video data to all employees and hundreds of third-party contractors in Ukraine, regardless of their job function, the FTC said.
The lawsuit alleged: "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."
This access allowed them to not only view customer videos but also download, share, and disclose them freely.
Additionally, according to the lawsuit, Ring did not enforce any restrictions on employees' ability to download or transfer customer videos before July 2017.
The FTC said that, despite this broad access, Ring did not provide training on handling sensitive video data to employees or contractors who were tasked with reviewing the data for various purposes.
From its side, Ring said in a statement provided to the Mirror: "Our focus has been and remains on delivering products and features our customers love, while upholding our commitment to protect their privacy and security.
"Ring promptly addressed these issues on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry.
"While we disagree with the FTC’s allegations and deny violating the law, this settlement resolves this matter so we can focus on innovating on behalf of our customers."
In a second lawsuit, Amazon is accused of violating the FTC Act and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by unlawfully storing children's information through their Alexa voice assistant profiles.
The company has agreed to pay $25 million to settle the suit.
The Department of Justice filed the complaint and settlement proposal on behalf of the FTC, claiming that Amazon had retained voice and geolocation data linked to young users for extended periods and had hindered parents from deleting their children's data as allowed by the COPPA Rule.
As part of this settlement, Amazon will be required to delete inactive child accounts, certain voice recordings, and geolocation information.
Additionally, the company will be prohibited from utilizing this data to train its algorithms.
Amazon said in a statement: At Amazon, we take our responsibilities to our customers and their families very seriously.
"Our devices and services are built to protect customers’ privacy, and to provide customers with control over their experience.
"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.
"We built Alexa with strong privacy protections and customer controls, designed Amazon Kids to comply with COPPA, and collaborated with the FTC before expanding Amazon Kids to include Alexa.
"As part of the settlement, we agreed to make a small modification to our already strong practices, and will remove child profiles that have been inactive for more than 18 months unless a parent or guardian chooses to keep them."
And Ring said: "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."
Both settlements must be approved by a court to take effect.
Just a few weeks ago, Ring’s new CEO Liz Hamren announced in an email to employees that founder Jamie Siminoff was leaving the video doorbell company and Amazon - though it is not thought to be related.
Amazon allegedly paid more than $1 billion to acquire the company in 2018.
When Siminoff announced the change earlier this year, he explained: “I decided to shift my role to Chief Inventor."
Amazon spokesperson Yassi Yarger confirmed Siminoff’s departure, adding: “Jamie has been an incredible founder and inventor, building a product that is now used by customers across the world.
"He has also been a great colleague since Amazon and Ring came together back in 2018 — we thank him for his many contributions, and wish him the very best for the future.”
