Are you being spied on by your ADT alarm system? The latest scandal

People buy alarm & security systems to feel safe from outside threats like burglars, stalkers, or just weird neighbors. You may not have a specific concern in mind, but security systems usually serve to create a sense of safety.

However, popular security company ADT has recently found themselves in hot water thanks to one employee who had no qualms using the system for his own benefits. Meaning the very system that people were buying to feel secure led to their privacy being completely eroded.

Here’s everything you need to know about what happened.

One employee, hundreds of customers

One former installation technician in Texas has admitted that he had secretly accessed the camera feeds of more than 200 different customers. Specifically, he noted the homes of women he found attractive and spied on them while they slept, changed, or had sex.

It’s believed that he accessed video feeds for his own personal purposes nearly 10,000 times in a little over four years.

The man has pleaded guilty in court.

How he did it

The ADT employee didn’t need to do any hacking. Instead he would tell customers that he needed to temporarily add his email to their account in order to “test the security system”. Adding his email provided him all the access he needed – it allowed him to watch the alarm system’s camera feeds in real-time since he never removed his email.

Other times the employee would add his email without ever saying anything to customers.

His ploy was discovered when a customer contacted ADT for customer support and they saw an email they didn’t recognize attached to the account.

Court cases

The ADT employee was given federal charges in October – this is the case he’s pleaded guilty in. There are also three different lawsuits against ADT for the breach of security.

Customers believe that ADT failed to implement proper security measures that would disallow “non-household members from adding non-household email addresses”. Another lawsuit claims that the company didn’t notify consumers when a new email was added to their accounts.

Customers also allege, “the flagrant security breach was discovered not by the company, but ‘by luck and happenstance.’”

The three lawsuits are still ongoing. ADT had attempted to have the lawsuits dismissed citing that “according to their contracts, customers are required to solve the dispute privately in arbitration.”

Bribes?

It’s also being reported that ADT tried to create confidentiality agreements with the customers of their alarm system that had their privacy violated. One customer said that they were also offered $2,500 and credits for monitoring services (you know, the one that was abused in the first place) and upgraded equipment.

This same customer said that the company increased their offer to $50,000 when she refused to sign the agreement.

It’s also been said that every customer and their case was handled differently, but it’s unknown as to why that is.

The employee’s future

The employee who has pleaded guilty to invading the privacy of hundreds of ADT customers is currently not in jail. He’s awaiting sentencing but is not allowed to work in any position that would grant him access to security systems.

Acting U.S. Attorney Perak Shah said, “This defendant, entrusted with safeguarding customers’ homes, instead intruded on their most intimate moments. We are glad to hold him accountable for this disgusting betrayal of trust.”

ADT reported the discovery of the breach back in April of 2020 and assured consumers that they had immediately taken preventative measures in order to make sure something akin to this situation never happens again.