Ring employees watch customer footage

In a letter to US Senators, Ring stated that users’ video data had been accessed improperly by some of its employees and that these employees had now been let go. Ring is a home security company owned by Amazon.

The abuse of private data being accessed by employees of tech companies is a rising issue, highlighted by this latest case with Ring. Some of Rings cameras are designed to be placed inside of a user’s home, making the video data being accessed by employees especially sensitive.

In the letter, Ring says:

‘We are aware of incidents discussed below where employees violated our policies. Unfortunately, we also continue to see stolen credentials and passwords (from other applications and sites) that have led to some bad actors gaining access to Ring devices. Our security team investigated these incidents and found no evidence of an unauthorized intrusion or compromise of Ring’s systems or network.’

The letter further states that even though the workers were authorised to view the videos from users’ cameras, their use went beyond what they needed for their job. The letter continues to say ’In each instance, once Ring was made aware of the alleged conduct, Ring promptly investigated the incident, and after determining that the individual violated company policy, terminated the individual.’

In addition to firing said workers, Ring also explains that access to user’s video data has been limited to a smaller group of people, specifically three employees.