For the second time in a week, Amazon disclosed employee firings for improper access to customer data.
TechCrunch obtained an email sent Friday to customers noting that an Amazon employee was terminated for leaking email addresses and phone numbers “to a third party, in violation of our policies.” Amazon said in the email customers don’t need to take any actions as a result of these disclosures.
Amazon confirmed the firings, noting multiple employees were involved. Amazon has systems in place to spot suspicious behavior that allowed the company to catch on to the data leak.
“The individuals responsible for this incident have been terminated and we are supporting law enforcement in their prosecution,” an Amazon spokesperson told GeekWire in a statement.
Amazon didn’t say how many employees were terminated, how many customers were impacted, when the incident occurred and who the data was shared with.
Last week, Amazon confirmed that subsidiary Ring fired employees for attempting to access customer video data beyond the scope of their jobs. Ring received several complaints over four years and fired an undisclosed number of employees after investigations of the incidents, according to a letter Amazon public policy lead Brian Huseman sent to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
This isn’t the first time Amazon customer data has been exposed. In November 2018, Amazon said some customers had their names and emails “inadvertently disclosed” by the tech giant’s website due to a “technical error.”
