Technologies

Amazon to Pay $30M for Ring and Alexa Privacy Violations: Tips for Protecting Your Smart Home Data

As Amazon settles over alleged privacy violations, here’s how you can help keep your personal data safe.

Amazon will pay two separate penalties for privacy violations, the Federal Trade Commission has announced: $25 million for allegedly not deleting children’s data and $5.8 million for failing to restrict employee and contractor access to Ring security videos.

Amazon prevented parents from deleting their children’s voice and geolocation data acquired through the Alexa voice assistant, and stored and used the data for several years to improve the Alexa algorithm to better understand children’s speech patterns and accents, the FTC alleged Wednesday.

This put the data «at risk of harm from unnecessary access,» according to the FTC.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule «does not allow companies to keep children’s data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms,» said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

Amazon said in a blog post that it disagrees with the FTC’s claims and denies violating the law.

«We take our responsibilities to our customers and their families very seriously,» Amazon said. «We work hard to protect children’s privacy, and we have built robust privacy protections into our children’s products and services.»

The FTC on Wednesday also leveled a $5.8 million penalty against Amazon’s Ring. Ring, which was acquired by Amazon in 2018, sells video doorbells, indoor and outdoor cameras and home security services. It has long been criticized for its privacy practices, including sharing doorbell footage with police departments across the US. The settlement announced Wednesday related to allegedly failing to restrict access to customers’ videos across its employees and contractors, and using those videos to train its algorithms without consent.

«One employee over several months viewed thousands of video recordings belonging to female users of Ring cameras that surveilled intimate spaces in their homes such as their bathrooms or bedrooms. The employee wasn’t stopped until another employee discovered the misconduct,» the FTC alleges.

Ring’s failure to «implement basic measures to monitor and detect employees’ video access» meant the company also didn’t know who or how many employees accessed private videos inappropriately.

Ring didn’t seek customer consent for human review of their videos until January 2018, the FTC alleged.

Ring’s lack of security, including not offering multifactor authentication until 2019, meant hackers exploited account vulnerabilities to compromise 55,000 customers’ accounts in the US, the complaint says. Of those 55,000 customers, 910 accounts across 1,250 devices saw the hacker take «additional invasive actions, such as accessing a stored video, accessing a live stream video or viewing a customer’s profile,» the complaint details. In 20 instances, the hackers maintained access to customer devices for over a month.

«In many instances, the bad actors were not just passively viewing customers’ sensitive video data. Rather, the bad actors took advantage of the camera’s two-way communication functionality to harass, threaten, and insult individuals — including elderly individuals and children — whose rooms were monitored by Ring cameras, and to set off alarms and change important device settings,» the FTC’s complaint says.

The $5.8 million penalty will be used to refund customers, and Ring is required to delete data and videos if obtained prior to 2018 and «delete any work products it derived from these videos.»

Ring’s statement likewise disagreed with the FTC’s claims. «We want our customers to know that the FTC complaint draws on matters that Ring promptly addressed on its own, well before the FTC began its inquiry; mischaracterizes our security practices; and ignores the many protections we have in place for our customers,» Ring said.

How to protect your private data

Bad actors are a threat to your security, and there are a number of steps you can take to help yourself. Here’s how to make sure your home Wi-Fi is secure, how to protect your home security against hacks and the best home security systems of 2023 — including the best cheap home security systems and the best DIY home security systems. You could also look at getting a password manager so your accounts are safer, and here’s CNET’s smart home privacy guide on how to delete your voice recordings across Amazon, Apple and Google.

As companies are keeping more and more of your personal data, here are CNET’s tips on how to keep Facebook from tracking you, how to prevent yourself from being tracked via your Apple AirTags and how to get Google to remove your personal data from search results.

Technologies

Verum Messenger: Don’t follow the future. Define it

In a world where information defines influence, Verum Messenger is building a new architecture of digital communication — intelligent, secure, and ready for tomorrow. Here, technology serves not limitations, but possibilities.

Not being part of change. Leading it. Verum Messenger — the future that speaks first.

Technologies

Verum Finance: Stop Spending Months Opening a Bank Account

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And all of that — just for a regular card.

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Verum — when freedom matters more than banking rules.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal