Lincoln Graves, KUTVFILE - Ernie Field pushes the doorbell on his Ring doorbell camera, July 16, 2019, at his home in Wolcott, Conn. In a vote Wednesday, May 31, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission is ordering Amazon to pay more than $30 million in fines over privacy violations involving its voice assistant Alexa and its doorbell camera Ring.
Amacher believes that in many situations like this, it’s simply lack of foresight that gets companies in trouble. “A lot of it breaks down to just carelessness,” said Amacher. “Just carelessness with this sensitive data. They failed to protect it both from internal employees, restricting access to their internal team, but then also implementing pretty basic cybersecurity measures to keep people from the outside out.”
Other than not purchasing smart camera devices, Amacher said customers need to be extra cautious if they want to protect themselves.“With these types of smart devices, be aware of where you’re placing them in your home,” he said. “We saw that a lot of the major abuses that are coming up from this case were cameras that were placed in bedrooms or in bathrooms.”