Ring says it fired employees for viewing customer videos

Amazon’s Ring has confirmed that it fired four employees for watching customer videos, according to its letter to U.S. senators.

Ring says it opened an investigation into four complaints that it received of the course of four years. Although the employees had the authority to watch the videos, the company says they had tried to access data that exceeded what they needed to perform their jobs.

The company says it has now limited data access to a smaller number of employees. Now, only three employees are able to access stored videos.

The Intercept previously reported that Ring gave some workers in Ukraine access to videos for research purposes.

In its letter, Rings says “The R&D team in Ukraine can only access publicly available videos and videos available from Ring employees, contractors, and friends and family of employees or contractors with their express consent.”

Ring recently promised to improve its security practices after a report from Motherboard discovered that Ring gives users’ videos to local police in some parts of the U.S.

Further, Ring is currently being sued by an Alabama man who claims that the camera’s flawed design leaves users vulnerable to cyberattacks. The man alleges that an unknown hacker accessed his Ring camera while his children were playing on their driveway and asked them to come closer to the camera.

Source: Motherboard, Engadget