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Nest Competitor Ring Reportedly Gave Employees Full Access To Customers' Live Camera Feeds (9to5google.com)
Amazon-owned Ring allowed employees to access customers' live camera feeds, according to a report from The Intercept. "Ring's engineers and executives have 'highly privileged access' to live camera feeds from customers' devices," reports 9to5Google. "This includes both doorbells facing the outside world, as well as cameras inside a person's home. A team tasked with annotating video to aid in object recognition captured 'people kissing, firing guns, and stealing.'" From the report: U.S. employees specifically had access to a video portal intended for technical support that reportedly allowed "unfiltered, round-the-clock live feeds from some customer cameras." What's surprising is how this support tool was apparently not restricted to only employees that dealt with customers. The Intercept notes that only a Ring customer's email address was required to access any live feed.
According to the report's sources, employees had a blase attitude to this potential privacy violation, but noted that they "never personally witnessed any egregious abuses." Meanwhile, a second group of Ring employees working on R&D in Ukraine had access to a folder housing "every video created by every Ring camera around the world." What's more, these employees had a "corresponding database that linked each specific video file to corresponding specific Ring customers." Also bothersome is Ring's reported stance towards encryption. Videos in that bucket were unencrypted due to the costs associated with implementation and "lost revenue opportunities due to restricted access." In response to the report, Ring said: "We have strict policies in place for all our team members. We implement systems to restrict and audit access to information. We hold our team members to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our policies faces discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties. In addition, we have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them."
According to the report's sources, employees had a blase attitude to this potential privacy violation, but noted that they "never personally witnessed any egregious abuses." Meanwhile, a second group of Ring employees working on R&D in Ukraine had access to a folder housing "every video created by every Ring camera around the world." What's more, these employees had a "corresponding database that linked each specific video file to corresponding specific Ring customers." Also bothersome is Ring's reported stance towards encryption. Videos in that bucket were unencrypted due to the costs associated with implementation and "lost revenue opportunities due to restricted access." In response to the report, Ring said: "We have strict policies in place for all our team members. We implement systems to restrict and audit access to information. We hold our team members to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our policies faces discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties. In addition, we have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them."
wanting to know which of my cats is walking on the countertop makes me a busybody? ... I'm still not seeing it.
wanting to know when the UPS guy drops off a package on my front porch makes me a busybody?
I recommend that instead of Ring, people should get the DEBARK Smart Video Doorbell.
It's less expensive (~$78 on Amazon) and it can record to SD card, SDVR, or a cloud service of your choosing (optional). Comes with a free remote indoor chime, and from what I understand, it's easy for it to connect to your old doorbell chime. Can be used wired or wireless. Two-way audio, and very good night vision capability.
Ring is waaaaaay overpriced and they force you to use their paid cloud service. Yes, it's only $3 a month, but why be forced to pay anything? The cheaper models won't let you do anything besides receive alerts and watch live video.
And, for the record, I have no connection to DEBARK, I just think their wireless doorbell is FAR better than the crap that Ring puts out.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If you are a technologist, then lead the way. Gently educate your family and friends that *everything* is tracked by these companies, especially by the large tech firms that offer "free" services. These companies do not respect privacy or personally identifying information (PII) because it's a big reason how they make money. The US has no laws to protect individuals' personal data. The US has no restrictions on what data can be collected and stored beyond the weak and easily bypassed age checks.
Non-technical people have no real understanding about how easy and effortlessly it is to log, store, and analyze every keystroke, mouse movement, mouse click, touch gesture, search query, location, picture, video, audio, document, email, phone call, website visit, instant message, etc. And they have no concept that the largest tech companies also buy personal data from smaller companies to supplement their own.
The US needs protections for privacy now.