The Biden administration is sending out $5.6 million in refund payments to certain Ring home security system customers after the company settled a federal complaint accusing it of security lapses.
In a statement this week, the Federal Trade Commission said it would be sending out 117,044 payments via PayPal to affected customers as compensation for claims that Ring allowed employees and contractors to access consumers’ private videos. The agency accused Ring last year of failing to implement proper security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumer accounts, cameras and videos.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Ring, which Amazon purchased in 2018, said bad actors took emails and passwords that were “stolen from other companies to unlawfully log into Ring accounts of certain customers."
It said it promptly addressed the situation by notifying any customer “exposed in a third-party, non-Ring incident” and acting to protect affected accounts.
Many of the violations the FTC alleged predate Amazon's acquisition.
Ring did not immediately address the FTC’s allegations that employees and contractors unlawfully accessed video, the AP said. Amazon has said that it disagreed with the FTC’s claims but that it was eager to “put these matters behind us.”
The FTC said customers who have not already been contacted about refunds or who have questions about their payments should contact the refund administrator, Rust Consulting Inc., at 1-833-637-4884 or visit the FTC website to view frequently asked questions about the refund process.
