Ring users are getting a collective $5.6 million in refunds from Amazon, thanks to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a recent privacy breach settlement. You might be able to get in on it, too, as long as you meet the qualifications.
The settlement concerns users whose private video footage was accessed by Amazon workers without consent.
Ring’s smart home security devices have long been seen as big privacy concerns, given the amount of data they hoover up. A complaint lodged in May 2023 alleged Amazon never issued adequate security measures for its Ring products, and Amazon has settled for well over $5 million.
Here’s what the allegations were about, and how you might qualify for a piece of the settlement.
Ring’s Employees Had Unlimited Access to Users’ Devices, Allegedly
The FTC’s original complaint alleges that Ring had lax internal regulations to keep employees and contractors from accessing customers’ video logs. Instead, they had unlimited access, according to the allegations covered by Bleeping Computer, and this allowed for the possibility of Amazon workers to abuse their position.
In addition, the complaint claims that Ring didn’t add basic security measures like multi-factor authentication until 2019, making its external regulation pretty shoddy as well.
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This made it easier, the complaint says, for third-party bad actors to hijack Ring user accounts through brute-force attacks.
It’s all pretty condemning stuff for one of the biggest tech companies in the US, even if it’s far from abnormal amid even worse cybersecurity incidents we’ve seen in recent years, from ransomware heists to Facebook phishing.
Do You Qualify for Some of the $5.6 Million?
The FTC is sending payments through PayPal now to over 117,000 customers who had “certain types of Ring devices, such as indoor cameras” during certain time periods.
They’ll all need to redeem the funds in the next 30 days, putting a ticking clock on the possibility of recovering money that’s sure to cut off some Ring users who aren’t checking their PayPal account on a regular basis.
Ring users are eligible if their account was determined to be vulnerable due to the privacy and security issues raised by the complaint. In other words, you don’t need to prove that your account was exploited by bad actors — just that it was possible for it to be.
Check Your PayPal Account, Folks
For some settlements, any eligible parties need to fill out a form or reply to an email. That’s not the case here: This time, due in part to all that Ring data collection, the FTC knows exactly who the millions of settlement dollars are being given to.
“The FTC identified eligible Ring customers based on data provided by the company.” – the FTC to Bleeping Computer.
It’s a relatively easy settlement to receive, compared to other recent types of settlements, from the $5k data breach settlement that Webster Bank customers qualified for this month to the $150 that Canadians with old iPhones are up for. Just about the only downside, in my opinion, is that you owned a Ring device at one point.
