Ring to Pay Out $5.6m in Refunds After Customer Privacy Breach

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will send a total of $5.6m in refunds to customers of Ring, a home camera provider, as the result of a settlement with Ring over security and privacy failings.

Ring, which was bought by tech giant Amazon in 2018, reached the settlement with the FTC in 2023 over charges the company allowed employees and contractors to access consumers’ private videos and failed to implement security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras and videos.

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In a May 2023 complaint, the FTC said that the home camera company deceived its customers by failing to restrict employees’ and contractors’ access to its customers’ videos, using its customer videos to train algorithms without consent, and failing to implement security safeguards.

These practices led to “egregious violations of users’ privacy,” the FTC said in a public statement.

The FTC will send 117,044 PayPal payments to consumers who had certain types of Ring devices, including indoor cameras, and whose Ring accounts were vulnerable to privacy and security issues alleged in the complaint.

The payment will be operated by Rust Consulting, Inc., a refund administrator.

Consumers should receive their PayPal payment within 30 days.

Read more: Ring Rolls-Out End-to-End Encryption to Bolster Privacy