Amazon.com’s Ring will pay $5.8 million after employees spied on customer videos

Amazon.com’s doorbell camera unit Ring has reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regarding privacy, according to a filing Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

As part of the agreement, Ring is to pay $5.8 million, according to a filing.

Amazon.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FTC said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers’ sensitive video data said “as a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data for their own purposes.”

As part of the FTC agreement with Ring, which is good for 20 years, Ring is required to disclose to customers how much access to their data the company and its contractors have.

In February 2019, Ring changed its access practices so that most Ring employees or contractors could only access a customer’s private video with that person’s consent.