Dozens of people who say they have been threatened with death, racial slurs, and harassment after their home cameras were broken into, have sued the company for “secret” attacks.
The Lawsuit
The new lawsuit, which covers several lawsuits filed over the years, alleges that loose security measures in the Ring, held by Amazon, have allowed hackers to take their devices. The ring provides home security in the form of smart cameras that are often installed on door locks or inside people’s homes.
Ring’s case is based on previous cases, which include complaints lodged by more than 30 people in 15 families who say their devices have been hacked and used to abuse them. Responding to the attack, Ring “accused the victims, and provided inadequate answers and illegal explanations”, the case said. The plaintiffs allege that the company also failed to adequately review its security measures after those hacks.
Potential beneficiaries in court include the families mentioned in the case, as well as other Ring users who have been hacked. This category also includes tens of thousands of customers who bought the Ring door ring between 2015 and 2019, even though they were not stolen.
“I can imagine that there are a lot of people out there who have been hacked,” said Hassan Zavareei, the lawyer leading the case. “This is probably just the tip of the iceberg.”
Violation Incidents
The suit cites examples of hijackers taking Ring cameras, yelling obscenities, demanding fines, and threatening to kill and sexually assault.
One Ring user said he was asked about his camera while watching TV the other night, “What are you looking at?” Another allegation that her children were being targeted by an unknown hacker on the show, who commented on their basketball game and encouraged them to get closer to the camera.
In one case, an elderly woman in an assisted living room was reportedly told that “tonight she is dying” and was sexually harrased by a camera. Because of the trauma she eventually had to return to her family, feeling unsafe in the institution where she lived.
In another incident, a plaintiff who bought Ring equipment to watch his four-year-old daughter with a history of fainting claims that the music played in the horror film was played on her camera. Her complaint read:
On December 4, 2019, just after 8 p.m., while Mrs. LeMay was doing some work, both devices in the Ring began streaming live. At the same time, Tiny Tim’s cover of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”, a song that appeared on the scene from the 2020 horror film “Insidious”, began playing part of two speeches.
Impressed by the music, Ms. LeMay’s eight-year-old daughter, AL, went to the living room with her two younger sisters to investigate. But the room was empty. As AL wandered around the room, searching for the source of the music, the song abruptly stopped, and a male voice shouted: “Hello there.”
LeMay soon changed the passwords and called Ring that day to report a burglary, but had not received a response for nearly a week. The company had not told LeMay where the matter came from and how it happened, the complaint said. The complainant eventually resigned due to emotional distress, the complaint said.
Ring’s Response
Ring did not say who was behind the tragedy, and the victims said they still did not know who was entering their homes with the services.
Repeatedly, Ring accused the victims of not using enough passwords, the claim said. It says the Ring should have required users to set up complex passwords when configuring devices and using two-factor authentication, which adds a second layer of security using a second identification form, such as a phone number.
However, as the lawsuit alleges, Ring was hacked in 2019 – meaning the stolen information from the breach could be used to access users’ cameras. That means Ring hacks suspected by customers may have been created by Ring itself. A spokesman said the company had not commented on the ongoing cases.
Other Allegations Against Amazon’s Ring
The lawsuit also cites research from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others that Ring violates user privacy through multiple third-party trackers in their application.
The suit said that, at present, Ring “has not adequately developed its own security measures or responded adequately to the ongoing threats its products targeted to its customers”. Security and privacy experts also criticized Ring’s response.
“After a series of shocking articles about their bad safety practices, Ring finally improved,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of the privacy group Fight for the Future. “But using the basic security they should have had in the first place does nothing to change the fact that Ring cameras make communities safer, less secure.”
In addition to hacking concerns, Ring has faced increasing criticism for its growing surveillance partnership with police forces. Ring has now created law enforcement partnerships, which allow users to send footage and photos to police, in more than 1,300 cities.
“Ring’s surveillance-based business model is fundamentally incompatible with civil rights and democracy,” Greer said. “These devices, and the thinking behind them, should be melted down and never spoken of again.”
