Amazon has come under scrutiny in the past few months regarding their video surveillance and doorbell product, Ring. In December, a family in Mississippi filed a lawsuit against Amazon after the camera in their daughters’ bedroom was hacked and the speaker started playing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” (have a listen here, it’s unnerving to say the least). The hacker then went on to call their daughter racial slurs and told her he was Santa Clause. Countless other instances have also been reported, where hackers are seen taunting residents in their homes.
Another privacy concern that arose with Ring was Amazon’s collaboration with over 400 police departments across the United States, sharing video footage for investigation without user consent. Also, unacknowledged in the user agreement, was the fact that Amazon shared user data with third-parties to include Google and Facebook.
A software engineer for Amazon spoke out on the issue, saying, “The deployment of connected home security cameras that allow footage to be queried centrally are simply not compatible with a free society. The privacy issues are not fixable with regulation and there is no balance that can be struck. Ring should be shut down immediately and not brought back.”
Since then, Amazon has implemented software updates to address security. These include default two-factor authentication and an option for users to approve or deny police access to their Ring video footage. Amazon also claims that their servers had not been compromised but the hackers instead had access to user login from the data breaches of other companies. Of course it’s been said before but it cannot be stressed enough… never use the same password for multiple accounts. (For more tips on safer password protection, click here)
I hope other companies will witness and learn from Ring’s vulnerabilities it order that they may also make better efforts to prioritize user privacy.
“Freedom, security, convenience – choose two.” – Dan Geer
Unwind_My_Mind 