Security service provider: employee spies on customers having sex via cameras

For more than five years, a service technician in the U.S. used his company's security cameras to peek into the bedrooms of more than 200 customers.

Telesforo Aviles, a 35-year-old former employee of home and office security company ADT, took advantage of his position at the U.S.-based firm to observe customers in intimate situations for more than five years. He admitted as much last Thursday in a district court in the U.S. state of Texas, pleading guilty to computer fraud, among other charges. As the English-language tech website Ars Technica reports, he now faces up to five years in prison.

According to the confession, Aviles kept a list of customer households with attractive women, to whose customer accounts he added his email address. This gave him access to the mobile app for ADT's Pulse service, which allows users to remotely turn lights on or off, disable or reactivate alarms, or view the image from cameras. When asked by the customer, Aviles said he needed access to test the security features. Instead, he used the app over 9600 times to watch the women - preferably when they were naked, or having sex.

What could prove particularly problematic for Aviles is that at least one of the women was a minor at the time. The defendant accessed the cameras in her home alone nearly 100 times.

ADT says it reported its employee's illegal conduct to prosecutors as soon as the company became aware of it and is cooperating with the FBI and prosecutors' investigations. Nevertheless, several parties are filing class action lawsuits against ADT.

One of them represents the customers' minor family members. The core allegation is that ADT advertised its service as a way to keep an eye on children and pets remotely, but failed to implement adequate safeguards. These should have included two-factor authentication or SMS notifications when a new user logs in.

With such electronic monitoring systems, the customer or user must always be aware of the potential for abuse. It doesn't matter whether he hires a service provider or takes the equipment into his own hands. Time and again, security loopholes are made public with which such systems can be cracked and eavesdropped on or otherwise misused.