Jamie Siminoff won’t be deterred.
The Ring CEO told GeekWire as much at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Siminoff said he is determined to “stay the course” despite a barrage of media coverage questioning Ring’s relationship with law enforcement agencies across the country and more recent reports of chilling hacks into the company’s home security cameras.
“There was a lot written about our work with law enforcement,” Siminoff said. “We definitely stand behind that work. We’re going to keep doing that, but what we are trying to do is help everyone understand what we’re doing better. The facts of what we’re doing are good. They bring more privacy, more security, more control to people on their videos. They help them work with their local law enforcement. They help make neighborhoods safer.”
Related: Ring customers with cameras breached by hackers sue Amazon in proposed class action lawsuit
At least two families say their Ring devices did not make them safer, however. They claim that hackers were able to break into their Ring cameras to harass them, according to a proposed class action lawsuit filed last week. The Ring customers are suing Amazon, which owns the home security company, claiming breach of implied contract, invasion of privacy, and other violations.
“You have to stay the course and if you look back, a lot of companies go through these cycles, and the ones that are great in the end are the ones that stay the course, do the right thing,” Siminoff said. “It doesn’t mean you don’t listen, but you do the right thing.”
Ring announced new privacy and security features at CES this week, including a forthcoming “Control Center” in the app. Using the Control Center, customers can block police from requesting video footage captured by their Ring devices.
Siminoff said the Control Center will help concerned customers, “go to one area and see everything that’s going on, control everything, understand everything that’s happening in their neighborhood, whether they want to opt-out, how their videos are being used, their privacy, two-factor authentication.”
“We’re trying to productize and help bring that to the market, which I think is really an industry-leading position on what is becoming a new area for home security,” he added.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit and others have criticized Ring for failing to more proactively protect user accounts in the first place. Ring says the hacks into user cameras were the result of customers reusing passwords from other services that had already been breached. Ring is planning to make two-factor authentication the default on new accounts following the breaches.
GeekWire Managing Editor Taylor Soper contributed to this story.
