A CCTV camera technician from Texashas confessed to illegally accessing the security cameras of hundreds of families and monitoring their private moments.
According to the lawsuit against him, Telesforo Aviles, a 35-year-old technician, monitored customers of the company ADT, where he worked, from November 2015 to March 2020. ADT provides home security camera services.
Aviles was involved in installing home surveillance cameras in customers' homes and configuring the devices to work with the company's proprietary ADT Pulse app
However, prosecutors said Aviles did not follow company policy and began adding his personal email address to users of the ADT Pulse app during installation and testing.
Investigators said the technician primarily targeted attractive women and used the account to access real-time video streaming and spy on customers in their private moments at home or work.
The technician's scheme was uncovered in January and February 2020, when multiple customers discovered Aviles' email address in their app's configuration panel and reported it to ADT, which later referred the case to authorities.
Aviles was fired in April 2020 and pleaded guilty last week.
Prosecutors said Aviles had access to more than 200 client CCTV systems in more than 9,600 cases.
The former ADT technician now faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, according to the court.
ADT notified its customers of the incident in April 2020. The New York Post reported that the company tried to get its customers to sign a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a monetary payment so that Aviles’ actions would not be leaked online .Its efforts didn’t work, and the company is currently facing three lawsuits as a result of its former employee’s actions.
