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We start the interview by asking what a monitored security company is doing in the insurance sector, and move on to discuss what data might be most useful in building new insurance products. Our guest this week is Rob Davies, the chief insurance officer at Vivint. IoT deployments require a lot of hand holding. We end by answering a listener question about leak monitoring and water shut off tools. Kevin then discusses his review of a LoRa-based IoT development kit from Blues Wireless. It’s better than sewing your name in your underwear.
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We also cover Helium’s new deal to bring its decentralized 5G wireless network to T-Mobile and then discuss Tile’s new QR code stickers to create a tech-savvy label for your stuff that might get lost. Those surveys focus mostly on enterprise IoT adoption and things that stand in the way of them. We also cover two surveys this week from MachineQ and Hitachi Vantara. We touch on Nvidia’s continued forays into the metaverse and its plans to create digital twins for retailers with its new Omniverse services. Then we talk about Wi-Fi sensing showing up in Signify’s WiZ lightbulbs, and a wireless power provider paired with smart tags enabling a new retail experience - all without batteries. The agency this week asked Amazon and iRobot for more information about the deal, so Kevin and I took a moment to explain exactly what the FTC should worry about. Our focus has been and remains on delivering products and features our customers love, while upholding our commitment to protect their privacy and security.The Federal Trade Commission is looking into Amazon’s decision to purchase the maker of Roomba vacuum cleaners for $1.7 billion. “Ring promptly addressed the issues at hand on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry. “While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” Amazon said. The FTC claimed the company had failed to delete recordings when requested by parents and kept them longer than needed. Earlier this year, a new pilot scheme in East Renfrewshire saw the video doorbells handed out to vulnerable residents who had been the victim of a scam.Īn Oxford doctor was set to be awarded up to £100,000 in 2021 after a judge ruled that her neighbour’s smart doorbell camera breached her privacy, paving the way for similar rulings in the UK.Īmazon has separately paid a $25m fine related to allegations that it failed to protect children who used its Alexa voice speakers.
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In 2019, it emerged that police forces around the UK were handing out free Ring doorbells to victims of crime to help catch repeat offenders. The company started selling indoor cameras in 2016, the year the first privacy violations identified by the FTC occurred, and was bought by Amazon in 2018. The regulator said that security issues continued until 2020, with the company gradually limiting access to videos.
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However, a second employee continued to download videos from a female colleague’s camera system, according to the FTC. The employee who was reported for downloading thousands of videos was ultimately fired, with Ring introducing extra security measures for customer service employees following the incident. As well as employees, hundreds of contractors based in Ukraine had access to videos stored by customers. The regulator said the company had bypassed safety concerns “in pursuit of rapid product development”. The FTC also said that Ring had failed to introduce “basic privacy and security protections”, allowing hackers to take control of thousands of accounts and cameras. It started selling its devices in the UK in 2016.Īmazon has paid a $5.8m (£4.7m) fine to settle the case and said the practice has been halted since. Ring is best known for its video doorbells but also sells indoor and outdoor home security cameras. The employee was not stopped until his activity was discovered by a co-worker, the regulator said. One male customer service employee viewed thousands of videos of 81 female users, often for an hour or more each day, without the company’s knowledge. The company, which is now owned by Amazon, granted employees and third-party contractors unfettered access to videos taken with the cameras, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said. Staff at the security camera maker Ring could watch thousands of videos of people in their bedrooms and bathrooms without owners’ knowledge, a US regulator has claimed.
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