Amazon Hit with a US$1 Billion FTC Fine! Employees Peek at Will, Severely Violating Private Spaces

According to foreign media reports, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a cumulative fine of US$30.8 million (about NT$950 million) on Amazon due to a series of serious privacy failures involving its Alexa voice assistant[1] and Ring cameras (called webcams in mainland China)[2].

Among these, Amazon was fined US$25 million for violating children’s privacy law by retaining children’s Alexa voice recordings and blocking parents from exercising their right to delete them. FTC’s Samuel Levine said: “Amazon has a history of misleading parents, retaining children’s recordings for long periods, and ignoring parents’ deletion requests. Such conduct not only violates the COPPA Act but also pursues profit at the expense of privacy.”

The court order requires the retail giant to delete all collected information, including inactive children’s accounts, geolocation data, and voice recordings. At the same time, Amazon is prohibited from continuing to collect such data to train its algorithms and is required to disclose its data retention practices to customers.

More concerning, Amazon was also found to allow any employee or contractor to review private videos (called videos in mainland China) recorded using Ring cameras, raising user doubts. The FTC pointed out: “For example, one employee viewed thousands of Ring camera images of female users over several months, covering the most private spaces in their homes, such as bathrooms and bedrooms. It was only stopped when another employee discovered this misconduct.”

In addition to failing to adequately notify customers or obtain their consent, Amazon used these recorded videos for product improvement. The FTC also accused the company of failing to implement sufficient security protections to protect the account privacy of Ring users. This “extremely egregious” violation exposed users to credential stuffing and brute-force attacks, enabling criminals to take control of accounts and access video data without authorization.

The report noted: “Hackers not only viewed some customers’ videos but also used the two-way function of Ring cameras to harass, threaten, and insult monitored users, including the elderly and children. They also changed important device settings. Hackers mocked several children with racist language, sexually harassed individuals, and threatened a family with physical harm if they did not pay a ransom.”

It is estimated that between January 2019 and March 2020, the accounts of more than 55,000 US users were compromised due to Amazon’s lax policies.

Although these two settlements still require court approval, Amazon said: “We take our responsibility to customers and their families very seriously,” and stated that they “have always taken measures to protect customer privacy, provide clear privacy disclosures and customer controls, and maintain strict internal controls to protect customer data.”

Appendix

1. Amazon Alexa - All New Echo Dot
2. Amazon Ring series products