There’s just no excuse for how ADT let worker violate some Fort Worth-area customers
Even amid an attention-dominating pandemic, some news reports are so outrageous and infuriating that they break through.
A recent privacy breach for hundreds of Dallas-Fort Worth area customers of home-security company ADT is one of those.
Two federal lawsuits filed this week lay out a nightmare for any family. A technician who installed security equipment gave himself access to customers’ accounts, including cameras. One suit alleges the employee tapped into one family’s home more than a hundred times and was likely able to see family members, including a teenage girl, in their most private moments.
The technician — identified by ADT as Telesforo Aviles, according to one of the suits — was fired, and ADT reported the violations to local police. The company, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla., but has a large customer base in North Texas, apologized to affected customers and apparently offered them payments.
This one, though, cries out for a jury verdict. There’s only so much a company can do to stop one determined, rogue employee who’s willing to violate standards of privacy and decency. Aviles, if charged and convicted, should face a long sentence.
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But in this case, ADT bears a fair share of the blame. It was astonishingly easy for Aviles to access accounts, simply by adding his personal email address to customers’ accounts in an ADT app, the company has acknowledged. It went undetected for seven years.
The lawsuits seek more than $5 million. If class-action status is granted, that seems paltry for the 220 affected customers. ADT has proposed arbitration for the victims, a sign the company understands what a mess it has on its hands.
One small consolation is that a relatively small number of families were affected. But the rest of us should pause to consider the digital devices we’ve brought into our lives and how much our privacy is constantly at risk.
For instance, Amazon has acknowledged that workers sometimes listen to conversations with its Alexa devices to improve voice recognition. Google and Apple have done much the same thing with their digital assistants.
Ring doorbells have been found vulnerable to hacking, and outsiders have gained access to the company’s cameras inside customers’ homes.
And consider how many new services many of us have signed up for to work and communicate during the pandemic. The new darling of videoconferencing, Zoom, was quickly found to be vulnerable to hacking.
And then there are the trade offs we willingly make for the convenience and wonders of the digital age. But by now, people should be aware of the deal they’re making: giving up personal information to companies such as Facebook and Google so they can sell advertisers on the most accurately targeted pitches possible.
But when a company is selling safety and peace of mind, as ADT does, customers should be able to count on some level of trust. A company with access to so much personal information and, in many cases, the very inside of customers’ homes, should do a lot more to prevent employees from violating that trust.
After all, ADT’s code of conduct says: “We earn the trust of our customers through our dedication to safety and quality in everything we do.”
For hundreds of Dallas-Fort Worth customers, the company has a long way to go to live up to that pledge.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 5:03 AM.