Discord of the Ring: Court rules against Amazon device

Amazon has urged customers who have installed its Ring doorbell – which it is claimed helps to keep burglars, chancers and conmen at bay – to respect their neighbours’ privacy, and comply with any applicable laws following a UK court ruling that that the device “unjustifiably invaded” the privacy of a homeowner.

The case was brought by Oxfordshire resident Dr Mary Fairhurst, who claimed that the devices installed on the house of neighbour Jon Woodard broke data laws and contributed to harassment.

The row stems from an invitation from Woodard to Dr Fairhurst to have a tour of his home renovations, during which she claimed he showed off his new security system. Dr Fairhurst claimed she was “alarmed and appalled” to notice that Woodard had a camera mounted on his shed and that footage from it was sent to his smartphone.

A series of disputes about the cameras ensued, which resulted in Dr Fairhurst moving out of her home.

In the judgement it was found that the Ring doorbell captured images of the claimant’s house and garden, while the shed camera covered almost the whole of her garden and her parking space.

Judge Melissa Clarke found that audio data collected by cameras on a shed, in a driveway and on the Ring doorbell was processed unlawfully. She noted that at the time it was not possible to turn off the audio recording facility – that happened in an update in 2020 – and found the audio data that could capture conversations “even more problematic and detrimental than video data”.

“Personal data may be captured from people who are not even aware that the device is there, or that it records and processes audio and personal data,” she said in her judgement.

That, she said, was in breach of UK data laws – both the UK Data Protection Act and UK GDPR.

Judge Clarke added: “Even if an activation zone is disabled so that the camera does not activate to film by movement in that area, activation by movement in one of the other non-disabled activation zones will cause the camera to film across the whole field of view.”

In response to the judgment, Amazon said: “We’ve put features in place across all our devices to ensure privacy, security and user control remain front and centre – including customisable privacy zones to block out ‘off-limit’ areas, motion zones to control the areas customers want their Ring device to detect motion, and Audio Toggle to turn audio on and off.”

In a statement, the Information Commissioner’s Office appeared reluctant to get involved. It said: “Lots of people use domestic CCTV and video doorbells. If you own one, you should respect people’s privacy rights and take steps to minimise intrusion to neighbours and passers-by. In the vast number of cases, there are no issues.”

Last year, it was claimed that Ring doorbell app casually hands out sensitive customer data to a raft of companies – including Facebook and Google – without permission.

Amazon, which bought Ring in 2018 and sells a range of home security cameras as well as doorbells, has already been slammed for joining forces with with at least 200 law-enforcement agencies to carry out surveillance via its devices.

But privacy group The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that there is a much deeper issue with the app, with an investigation concluding that Ring is “packed” with third-party tracking, sending out customers’ personally identifiable information.

Amazon denied any wrong-doing.