Amazon's Ring will pay $5.8 million to settle FTC lawsuit alleging employees and third-party contractors had unrestricted access to customer videos

• Amazon's Ring will pay the FTC $5.8 million to settle a lawsuit claiming privacy violations, according to Wednesday court filings.
• The FTC alleged Ring employees and third-party contractors had unrestricted access to customers' video recordings.

Amazon-owned smart doorbell company Ring agreed to settle a lawsuit filed against the company by the Federal Trade Commission regarding privacy and data security concerns.

Ring will pay $5.8 million to the FTC and implement a new system for data security as part of the settlement, according to court documents filed Wednesday. The surveillance company — which was acquired by Amazon in 2018 in a $1 billion deal — is used by millions as a form of security, but the FTC alleged Ring employees had unrestricted access to footage on customers' home security systems.

"Ring promptly addressed these issues on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry," a Ring spokesperson told Insider. "While we disagree with the FTC's allegations and deny violating the law, this settlement resolves this matter so we can focus on innovating on behalf of our customers."

In one instance, a Ring employee viewed thousands of recordings from at least 81 female Ring camera users between June and August 2017, CNN reported.

"Only after the supervisor noticed that the male employee was only viewing videos of 'pretty girls' did the supervisor escalate the report of misconduct," the FTC alleged in its complaint, obtained by CNN. "Only at that point did Ring review a portion of the employee's activity and, ultimately, terminate his employment."

The FTC further alleged that employees of a third-party contractor in Ukraine also had access to customer footage with little restrictions before July 2017, according to CNBC.

In 2022, a US Senator probe found evidence that Amazon was handing over footage from Ring doorbells to police without consent from the owners of the cameras.

"We will continue to prioritize privacy, security, and user control as we pursue and improve technologies to help achieve our mission of making neighborhoods safer," Amazon's vice president of public policy Brian Huseman said in a July 2022 statement.