Amazon faces five million dollar lawsuit over Ring camera privacy
Amazon is facing a fresh legal battle over its Ring smart doorbells after a Virginia resident filed a class-action lawsuit on Monday, accusing the company of sweeping up and storing the facial recognition data of millions of unsuspecting citizens.
The lawsuit, filed by plaintiff Charles Sigwalt in a Seattle federal court, takes direct aim at Ring’s optional AI feature called "Familiar Faces." The technology is designed to identify and remember frequent visitors so homeowners can receive notifications with specific names when someone approaches their door. However, Sigwalt alleges that the system illegally analyzes, tracks, and retains biometric data from neighbors, delivery workers, and innocent passersby who never gave their consent. Seeking at least $5 million in damages, the suit argues that everyday citizens are "unknowingly having their facial recognition information collected" simply by walking past a home equipped with a Ring camera. Amazon has declined to comment on the pending litigation, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
This lawsuit is the latest headache for Amazon's home security division, which has been plagued by privacy controversies since Amazon acquired it for $1 billion in 2018. Just this past February, Ring faced public backlash over a Super Bowl ad promoting a feature to help find lost dogs using its neighborhood camera network, which critics warned could easily be twisted into a tool for mass neighborhood surveillance. Following that outcry, Ring severed a partnership with law enforcement license-plate-tracking firm Flock Safety.
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The company's privacy track record also includes a $5.8 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2023. In that case, the FTC alleged that Ring employees and contractors maintained unrestricted access to highly sensitive video feeds, including a instances where a former employee used the system to spy on female customers inside their bedrooms and bathrooms. Amazon denied any wrongdoing in that settlement, but this latest class-action suit ensures the tech giant's data practices will remain under intense scrutiny.
By Aysel Mammadzada
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