Amazon has agreed to pay $30.8 million to resolve allegations that it breached customers’ privacy by spying on women in their homes.
Aljazeera reported that the internet giant agreed to pay out $5.8m after the US Federal Trade Commission claimed that a former Amazon employee had used Ring security cameras installed in bathrooms and bedrooms to spy on female customers for months in 2017.
Amazon also agreed to a separate $25 million settlement over charges that it violated children’s privacy by failing to delete audio obtained by Alexa smart speaker recordings when parents requested it and by retaining the recordings longer than necessary.
Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine claimed that Amazon had “sacrificed privacy for profits.”
Amazon said that while it disagreed with the FTC’s characterizations and denied breaching the law, the matter would be resolved as a result of settlements.
The Seattle-based business claimed that its “devices and services are built to protect customer’s privacy and to give customers control over their experience.”
