Two Texas women sued ADT Security Services in a pair of federal lawsuits for violations that allowed an employee for a security giant to allegedly see footage from indoor security cameras installed in hundreds of homes over several years.
The proposed class action lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on behalf of hundreds of ADT clients who may be victims of employees, identified as Telesforo Aviles, who is suspected of having access to more than 200 ADT Pulse accounts over seven-year periods.
“This privacy violation occurs because ADT does not follow the most basic security procedures,” a news release from the Fears Nachawati Law Firm based in Dallas.
The loophole was discovered when a customer found unauthorized e-mails between addresses given permission to access their security system. The company, based in Boca Raton, Florida, notifies customers of security mistakes and tries to pay them off in return for their silence, the lawsuit said.
“In a panicked attempt to mitigate and conceal its actions, ADT began a campaign to summon all affected account holders and secure the release and confidentiality agreement in return for monetary payments that represent a fraction of the value of their claims,” one lawsuit read.
Deviations in security mostly affect customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Aviles is located.
In a statement to Fox News, the company said it reported violations to the authorities and had taken steps to prevent similar incidents.
“ADT reported to law enforcement in April that a former employee gained unauthorized access to an ADT account from 220 customers in the Dallas area,” the company said. “We take immediate action and take action to prevent this from happening again.”
The main plaintiffs named in the lawsuits, Alexia Preddy and Shan Doty, were told by ADT in April that a technician had given himself remote access to their security cameras.
Preddy was a teenager in September 2017 when his house was upgraded to a Pulse ADT account, which included the installation of an indoor security camera, according to these demands. The technician gave himself access to the account almost 100 times to spy on everyone in the house, according to his demands.
Doty upgraded to ADT Pulse in 2014. She was told by company representatives that a technician had access to her camera to potentially see “her, her husband, and their little son, for an unknown time.”
“Countless checks can be done to prevent or at least stop this behavior,” he said.
ADT Pulse allows customers to view their homes remotely and gives them the ability to control keys and security features through an application or web browser. The lawsuit accuses ADT of failing to apply protection to notify customers when their accounts have been accessed by third parties.
The lawsuits each sought $ 5 million, together with interest.
ADT has been accused of failing to protect customer privacy in the past. In 2017, the company agreed to pay $ 16 million to settle class action lawsuits in Illinois, Arizona, Florida and California after being accused of covering up the vulnerability of hacking in its security system.
