Ring confirms it fired four employees for watching customer videos

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Ring has responded to the US Senators demanding answers to the security issues it's facing in a letter, which was obtained by Motherboard. In it, the Amazon-owned company has admitted that it had to fire employees for watching customers' videos beyond what they were allowed to. Ring received the four complaints over the course of four years, and it opened an investigation for each one of them. While all the employees involved had the authority to view customer videos, Ring said they accessed or attempted to access data that "exceeded what was necessary for their job functions."

In addition to terminating the employees, Ring said it limited data access to smaller number of staff members. At the moment, only three employees can access stored customer videos. The company also clarified in the letter that while it gave an R&D team in Ukraine access to video data, that team can only watch publicly available videos and videos from employees, contractors and their friends who consented to be part of the program.

Ring recently pledged to beef up its security measures, most likely in response to all the flak it's gotten over various security issues. Motherboard discovered last year that Ring makes its security video footage available to local police, and it's also facing a lawsuit due a series of hacks that allowed infiltrators to digitally harass device owners. One of its recent efforts is requiring new signups to activate two-factor authentication -- a move that's nowhere near good enough for Senator Ron Wyden.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ring-confirms-it-fired-four-employees-for-watching-customer-videos/ar-BBYLX0J?li=BBnbcA1

[gratuitous]

1. I understand the desire for security and stuff

And the Ring doorbell dealy-bob seems to be a real boon to identifying bad actors in residential areas, whether it's package thieves, car collisions, random vandalism, and other incidents. But the balance between privacy and the fact that it's private companies with a direct connection to you, your home, your possessions, and all activities around that? Still a hard no for me, and reports like this only buttress my resolve not to install Ring or Alexis or any of the other electronic snoops being sold to folks.

[cbdo2007]

2. realistically, unless you are someone with notoriety

nobody is going to watch your videos or care what is going on at your place and watch you leaving or getting home, so you will just blend in with the other 20 million people someone could watch.

They are welcome to watch out my door 24/7. Seriously, they'll die of boredom before they see anything scandalous or interesting. We use our garage door to come and go about 90% of the time anyways, so its not even like they will see us to track our patterns or anything.

[a kennedy]

4. Ditto......won't get a ring or Alexis EVER.

[shanti]

7. I have a ring doorbell

And it's been great for when I am expecting things, people, packages, whatever. I enter and exit through my garage door, so the only time I'm personally on the ring is when I'm doing yard work or answering the front door. When I got it from Costco, I also got one free year of monitoring. I didn't have much use for the recordings, so I dropped the plan after one year. Still get real time of the front door though.

But those Alexas and the like? NO WAY would I have a camera and mike on me 24/7 in my own home!

[ScratchCat]

3. Its only a matter of time

before high-tech criminals are hacking people's phones and gaining access to their homes to rob them(if that hasn't happened already) via these Ring systems. I can't imagine setting up a "security system" that could possibly be used against me or thwarted by a hacker who would otherwise never try to rob someone if they have to do the dirty work and break-in the old fashion way.

[Merlot]

5. "an R&D team in Ukraine access to video data" n/t

[bitterross]

6. Apparently, they had way too much time on their hands

I work in tech support. If I wanted to read people's emails and look at their pictures I could. Fact is, most of us don't have the free time, nor the inclination to do so.

The people who were fired were doing more than invading privacy, IMHO. They were slackers as well. If you're doing your job properly, you don't have time for that stuff and when you do, the last thing you want to do is more of something that feels like work.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. I have similar experience

I'm retired from the phone company. Before testing a circuit or doing changes on a subscriber's line we'd monitor to see if it was in use. If it was we'd wait till the person hung up before doing the work.

We were required sign a pledge not to divulge the content of any conversation we may have heard. I'll just say I heard some interesting ones but never monitored these for my own amusement.