A lawyer representing the family of an 8-year-old girl who was targeted by a breached Ring security camera says the child is now seeking therapy as a result of the incident.
Hassan Zavareei said Thursday the little girl was traumatized after a man hacked into the device that the LeMay family had set up in the little girl’s room and began taunting her by playing scary music from the supernatural horror film “Insidious” and telling her that he was her best friend.
“With Ashley LeMay, her eight-year-old daughter was really sort of traumatized by this whole thing,” Zavareei told Hill.TV.
“They’re playing this scary movie music from ‘Insidious’ and telling her, ‘I’m your best friend’ through the Ring system,” he continued. “She’s now in therapy.”
Ashley LeMay, along with three other plaintiffs, filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon and its home security subsidiary Ring earlier this month. The suit claimed that Amazon’s Ring “created a living nightmare by allowing intruders to come into their homes and harass them and their families.”
Zavareei said the plaintiffs are seeking emotional distress compensation but did not specify the amount.
“There’s emotional distress damages for the people who are hacked but for everybody else who bought the system, they bought something that is basically worthless in our estimation,” he said. “You don’t buy a security system that actually comprises your security.”
A spokesperson for Ring told The Hill that it “does not comment on legal matters,” but added that the company does “not have any evidence that this issue is related to a breach or compromise of Ring’s system or network.”
Amazon’s Ring is also facing a separate federal lawsuit in California over similar allegations.
The lawsuit, which was filed last month, claimed that Ring did not take the proper steps to protect the privacy of its users and security of its devices.
The plaintiff, John Baker Orange, claimed that someone hacked into his Ring security camera while his children were playing basketball.
Zavareei warned that there may be “dozens” of unreported cases.
“As far as we know, we’ve seen dozens of people that have reported having been hacked,” he said. “A lot of people might have been hacked and don’t know it.”
—Tess Bonn
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