Amazon has agreed to pay out $30.8m to settle claims it violated customer privacy, including spying on women in their homes.
The tech giant agreed to pay out $5.8m after
the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said a former Amazon employee had spied
on female customers for months in 2017 using Ring security cameras placed in
bedrooms and bathrooms.
Amazon agreed to a separate $25m settlement
over allegations it violated children’s privacy by failing to delete audio
captured by Alexa smart speaker recordings when requested by parents and
keeping the recordings longer than necessary.
Samuel Levine, the director of FTC’s Bureau
of Consumer Protection, said Amazon had “sacrificed privacy for profits.”
“Ring’s disregard for privacy and security
exposed consumers to spying and harassment,” Levine said in a statement on
Wednesday.
Amazon said it disagreed with the FTC’s
characterisations and denied breaking the law but that settlements would put
the matter behind it.
“Our devices and services are built to
protect customers’ privacy, and to provide customers with control over their
experience,” the Seattle-based company said.
Ring, which is owned by Amazon, was quoted by
the AFP news agency as saying it had “promptly addressed these issues on its
own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry.”
Under orders proposed by the FTC, Ring would
delete any data that was viewed unlawfully and introduce security features
including multifactor authentication, while Amazon would not use deleted
geolocation and voice information for its products and would establish a
privacy program for using geolocation.
The proposed orders must be approved by a
federal judge.
Post a Comment