Amazon's Ring To Stop Letting Police Request Doorbell Video From Users 64
Amazon's Ring home doorbell unit says it will stop letting police departments request footage from users' video doorbells and surveillance cameras, retreating from a practice that was criticized by civil liberties groups and some elected officials. Bloomberg: Next week, the company will disable its Request For Assistance tool (non-paywalled link), the program that had allowed law enforcement to seek footage from users on a voluntary basis, Eric Kuhn, who runs Ring's Neighbors app, said in a blog post on Wednesday. Police and fire departments will have to seek a warrant to request footage from users or show the company evidence of an ongoing emergency.
Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool. Yassi Yarger, a spokesperson, said Ring had decided to devote its resources to new products and experiences in the Neighbors app that better fit with the company's vision. The aim is to make Neighbors, which had been focused on crime and safety, into more of a community hub, she said. New features announced on Wednesday -- one called Ring Moments that lets users post clips and a company-produced Best of Ring -- highlight that push.
Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool. Yassi Yarger, a spokesperson, said Ring had decided to devote its resources to new products and experiences in the Neighbors app that better fit with the company's vision. The aim is to make Neighbors, which had been focused on crime and safety, into more of a community hub, she said. New features announced on Wednesday -- one called Ring Moments that lets users post clips and a company-produced Best of Ring -- highlight that push.
Hurray! (Score:2)
Hurray! They made their product slightly less of a personal privacy nightmare!
Re:Hurray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because providing such footage voluntarily is clearly a privacy violation?
"the program that had allowed law enforcement to seek footage from users on a voluntary basis"
Now they have to get a warrant and provide it to ring bypassing the ring doorbell's owners say in any of this.
I'm not seeing this as a privacy win.
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The privacy issue is people knowing where your doorbell camera video is stored. Deleting it regularly out of your own storage would be better.
Re:Hurray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurray! (Score:4, Insightful)
uh, no? the video is sent to Amazon in all cases, this just means that to get the video, instead of asking ME for mine, they get a warrant and request it from Amazon, i would then have no idea my video had been collected. I would rather the police come ask me.
I think they could always ask you, that won't change. Amazon used to give it away freely, now they need a warrant. The article is just badly worded.
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What makes you think various law enforcement channels would bother going that route (asking homeowners directly) in the first place? If there is any kind of serious crime, they would get a warrant for evidence from cameras, which is a blanket thing for any cameras that could be useful in the area of the crime. Once they have that they have no need to trouble themselves with asking for permission from each individual camera owner in the area. They've always had this kind of access, and you better believe the
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What makes you think various law enforcement channels would bother going that route (asking homeowners directly) in the first place?
I've had police come to my door and ask to see my (non-Ring, locally stored) outdoor camera footage. Totally reasonable for them to ask before seeking a warrant, I'd guess like me the vast majority are happy to help if there is crime in the neighborhood. If I refused I'm sure they could get a warrant for mine or all my neighbors cameras as well, but that warrant would have to be to me, not a cloud provider. A lot of extra work without asking first.
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If they are able to get a warrant from a judge the owner's say doesn't really factor into any of it. The judge could grant a warrant just the same to confiscate your NVR hard drives in your house for the data anyways.
This isn't perfect but police having to make their case and get a warrant is good, that is a higher bar for them than just "asking the owners" because police asking for anything carries with it implications and not everyone has a lawyer on retainer for when a cop starts asking your questions.
P
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This was solved, decades or more ago, by the likes of VPN services. Keep the log files (video recordings, etc) for as long as you need them, then automatically delete them. The judge (and you) now have, say, a day to access the data before it is blanked, over-written, and re-overwritten.
You also need to do things like setting up your partitioning system with sensible sized mountable file syst
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My doorbell camera is oriented adjacent to my front door and looks directly at my neighbor's house - theirs does the same for mine. A camera I have on my driveway also incidentally captures the sidewalk and street and can see portions of several other properties - similar story for additional cameras on my side and back yards. I thoughtfully installed my cameras to reduce intrusion on my neighbors as much as possible, but it's very difficult to completely eliminate my cameras capturing something that might be sensitive to one of my neighbors. If I choose to share recordings from my cameras with the police, I am also potentially sharing information on my neighbors and they were not provided the opportunity to consent.
Same here. I have made a point not to point my cameras towards neighbors yards or windows, but I can see a car parked on the street in front of my house, and some minimal view of cars driving by. I'm totally fine with having no expectation of visual privacy in public places, after all living eyewitnesses may see you everywhere you go and you can't really ban that. There are much bigger privacy battles to fight than this. People should really worry more about your privacy in private rather than in publ
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Physically obstruct part of the lens? That's what I would be legally required to do in Spain if I had a camera whose view included part of the street or someone else's property.
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At that point, you're committing a second criminal offence.
Your first offence was in capturing the privacy-invading images in the first place.
No, it doesn't matter that the request is coming from people who represent themselves to you as being the police. Did you do your due diligence?
Sorry, didn't Ring explain this to you in the manual? Which you read.
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It *is* a privacy violation. Your Ring camera is most likely capturing video of all sorts of innocent people passing by on the public street, plus all the comings and goings at the house across the street. Enough Ring cameras essentially amount to total surveillance, because it become possible to follow the movements of every individual person in the area.
In countries with actual privacy laws, it is illegal to photograph people off of your own property, for exactly this reason. It doesn't matter if they a
Re:Hurray! (Score:4, Insightful)
In countries with actual privacy laws, it is illegal to photograph people off of your own property, for exactly this reason.
Really? So when I'm on vacation and I take a picture of my family on a crowded street or museum or amusement park, etc. I have to run around and get permission from every person who happens to be in the background? This is news to me. Do you have any citations for this?
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Countries with such laws that make it illegal to picture picture people without their permission also have a series of exceptions for things like touristic places, participation into a public event, people in the background who not easily identifiable. What you certainly can do is to picture your family or a monument as the main subject, even if there bypassers happen to be in the frame; what you certainly cannot do is to picture random people on the public domain as main subject. A lot of intermediate situ
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Using the camera in general is a violation of the user's privacy...
Not only do *you* have access to recordings, but you've also given access to amazon. It's much better to use a CCTV system which fits the name - ie "closed circuit" where you control where the video is stored and accessed, but 99% of consumer systems are cloud based (and often with a vendor far less well known than amazon).
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Yes, because they data they are often providing is of their neighbors, not their own stuff. Their neighbors won privacy back.
Its like the police being able to get your data from tech companies without a warrant under the third-party doctrine, it is a violation of privacy.
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Their neighbors won privacy back.
Whatever my neighbors do visible from a public place is legal to record (video) [aclupa.org].
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you are confusing a couple concepts here. It is legal to record, it is still an invasion of privacy to give that recording to the cops. Just like it would be an invasion of privacy for slashdot to had over all your browsing history to the cops, or for your roommate to allow the cops to search your house (common areas) even though you already told the cops no, but it is still legal, and the cops can ask them and get it/do it without a warrant, again see third party doctrine . It is not either or.
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It is legal to record, it is still an invasion of privacy to give that recording to the cops.
It's my recording. My First Amendment rights apply.
Just like it would be an invasion of privacy for slashdot to had over all your browsing history to the cops,
Depends on Slashdot's TOS. If they claim rights to my Slashdot browsing history as a condition of use, they can turn it over. My posting history is free for all to see (for those that have a strong stomach). I doubt Slashdot can get my entire browsing history.
for your roommate to allow the cops to search your house (common areas)
That usually requires a warrant or the permission of all residents.
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I'm not seeing this as a privacy win.
It likely isn't. It may be a money grab. (Recall please that corporations that do not seek to forever maximize shareholder profit are subject to being sued)
Looking at just how much money the likes of AT&T* and such get for cell phone information from LEO, it is likely very tempting for Amazon Ring to monetize this rather than continue to use resources and profits to keep it going. Using the excuse of "You need a court order for that" gives them leverage to insist on (increased) payment. Also, Amazon mak
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Only if they can show evidence of an "ongoing emergency" do they get to ask for it from Ring directly. Although I'm quite sure they can whip up some of that quick enough anytime they want to.
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Not at all. They just changed who gets to violate your privacy by taking the choice away from you and keeping it for themselves.
Yes (Score:2)
Amazon always reserved the right to bypass the user and pass on copy to the police independently.
The bad press from the Amazon-police partnerships is what Amazon wants to go away.
And they won't insist on a warrant either.
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People always have the option of showing video footage to the police, this just makes it less streamlined
Re:Hurray! (Score:4, Insightful)
People always have the option of showing video footage to the police
Only if they are aware that the police would like to see it. By preventing the police from asking, they are preventing their product, er, "customers," from knowing.
somebody loves the porch pirates (Score:2)
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Newsflash: Not all delivery people are male.
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Any bets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool.
I'm guessing the program was so popular with law enforcement that it was costing 'Zon actual money to run. Maybe that, combined with negative publicity, led them to pull the plug.
The aim is to make Neighbors, which had been focused on crime and safety, into more of a community hub, she said. New features announced on Wednesday -- one called Ring Moments that lets users post clips and a company-produced Best of Ring.
Yup, more data harvesting, and a bid for a slice of the Social Media pie. Predictable. Isn't Amazon just so nice, so touchy-feely? Gotta wonder how many Amazon delivery drivers will be participating - with consent or otherwise - in this latest bid to make customers think Amazon is their friend. Gag me with a rusty spoon.
Re:Any bets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool.
I'm guessing the program was so popular with law enforcement that it was costing 'Zon actual money to run. Maybe that, combined with negative publicity, led them to pull the plug.
I would add the theoretical possibility that they aren't actually discontinuing the service, just burying it and starting to charge the police for each access. I mean, why not? It's all about the money.
The aim is to make Neighbors, which had been focused on crime and safety, into more of a community hub, she said. New features announced on Wednesday -- one called Ring Moments that lets users post clips and a company-produced Best of Ring.
Yup, more data harvesting, and a bid for a slice of the Social Media pie. Predictable. Isn't Amazon just so nice, so touchy-feely? Gotta wonder how many Amazon delivery drivers will be participating - with consent or otherwise - in this latest bid to make customers think Amazon is their friend. Gag me with a rusty spoon.
This data collection shit is weird, man. I don't understand how scarfing massive piles of data on people turned into a profit center. Ever escalating energy needs to collect more data so we can serve them more ads feels like the entire human race just giving up. Who knew the information age would get so thoroughly perverted by the money first crowd? Well, I suppose anybody that noticed corporations eyeing the web in the early years wondering how best to monetize it would have. I didn't really feel it hit home until I heard an exec declare the internet a TV with a giant buy button on it. That was my sinking feeling moment. But it's gotten so much worse than I thought. Some web pages are more ads than content. Web pages hang up all the time, and if you go through the code and pull individual assets, it's almost always the ad generators that are making everything wait. We've literally prioritized advertising, which nearly universally is seen as horrible, over everything else on the web. And use that as an excuse to have the most finely honed information pull in history about everybody from the guy walking the neighborhood dogs to the highest of government officials. And nobody wants to do a damned thing about it.
When does the real web 2.0 come around? The one that's locked out from monetization. I miss going on the web to find information, rather than be turbo-fucked in the eye sockets by advertising and made up fantasyland political bullshit.
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It's like looking at (say) food blogs. Twenty pages of blathering by the author for you to see the advertising then an (untested) recipe. I'm at the point where I don't bother with net searches much anymore.
It's funny. Foodies seemed to have universally swallowed the SEO pill. Recipes, cooking lessons, food blogs, all of them are like that. Across the spectrum. A few of my other interests haven't completely fallen on the SEO petard, but it seems to be fewer and fewer informational sites that don't every day.
I'm almost old enough to swing into Carlin's old-man rant scenario where his stand-up routines started to resemble a scolding parent more than a comedy routine. So let me just say, "I'm disappointed humanit
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SEO? I'm getting over flu so a bit woozy this morning. But yeah I agree about the Carlin old man rant scenario. I understand why as people get older they stop interacting with others. It's far too painful in too many instances - and I'm not talking about disagreeing with the opinions of others, I'm talking about watching folks do absolutely stupid stuff and suffering the consequences. I don't enjoy seeing others get hurt or be in pain, or through their actions, hurt others.
I'm pretty much in agreement. I was never big on interacting with others, because I always saw them doing things that seem really bizarre and then being bitten for it. Well, at least by the time I was in my late teens. As I got older, it got dumber, and now I'm at the point where I see so much stupid flowing around me it's almost impossible to process it without breaking down. The idiocy of our media and politicians doesn't help much with that impression. And people being dupes and falling for it so often m
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I would add the theoretical possibility that they aren't actually discontinuing the service, just burying it and starting to charge the police for each access. I mean, why not? It's all about the money.
+1 Insightful. It never occurred to me, but I think you're probably right. They can make money on the QT and dodge the negative publicity.
I also agree with your entire last paragraph. It occurs to me that "this data collection shit" is more a kind of informal fiat currency. I don't think its inherent, actionable value is much higher than that of the paper that goes into folding money; much of its "value" comes from abstraction and consensus rather than utility. And yes, it is truly weird. But then so are NF
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I would add the theoretical possibility that they aren't actually discontinuing the service, just burying it and starting to charge the police for each access. I mean, why not? It's all about the money.
+1 Insightful. It never occurred to me, but I think you're probably right. They can make money on the QT and dodge the negative publicity.
I also agree with your entire last paragraph. It occurs to me that "this data collection shit" is more a kind of informal fiat currency. I don't think its inherent, actionable value is much higher than that of the paper that goes into folding money; much of its "value" comes from abstraction and consensus rather than utility. And yes, it is truly weird. But then so are NFT's - I thnk they're related phenomena.
Do you use an ad blocker? I'm asking because my experience of the Web isn't as shitty as the one you describe. It sucks much more than it used to for a lot of reasons, but my exposure to ads is probably about a twentieth of that of the average person. If my exposure to ads was as high as that of, say, my wife, I'd mostly stop using the Web. I'm old enough now that I could get away with it.
I use an ad blocker at home. At work we're not allowed to, so my break-time catch-ups on the web give me a glimpse of the web as the corporate masters have spun it up. And it's every bit as depressing as you'd think.
Cue Axon? (Score:2)
Cue Axon to flood the market with cheap-to-free doorbell cams to give cops their video again?
We have lots of evidence that people will trade privacy away for cheap and free goods.
Axon makes Tasers but a lot of their products are body cams and car cams etc. They're extremely cop-friendly. This seems like their bailiwick.
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The bigger issue here is they are also trading away OTHER peoples privacy.
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The bigger issue here is they are also trading away OTHER peoples privacy.
Right. And Axon makes cameras that favor cops.
Let me guess ... (Score:2)
Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool.
Someone in the Amazon management chain got caught in some compromising Ring footage? /cynical
Ring-based social media (Score:2)
"Hey, Jim! Who was that dolled-up woman who visited your house while the wife was away? And why was she counting a wad of bills when she left?"
Amazon is only dropping a program that didn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
I've spoken at length to a couple of police officers about the Amazon Ring camera program. They considered it basically useless, for a few reasons:
(1) If police need camera footage, they just look around the area of the crime and knock on residents' doors. People who have cameras are almost always happy to provide video footage.
(2) Residents send Ring footage to the police all the time. The police are overwhelmed with voluntarily submitted video clips.
(3) Ring video footage is rarely of much value. Ring makes good video doorbells, but terrible security cameras. Most Ring users turn down the motion sensitivity to prevent random people and vehicles on the street from triggering the camera. So unless the crime takes place right on their front porch, nothing is recorded.
My assumption it that Amazon did a cost-benefit analysis and came to the conclusion that the program really wasn't providing significant benefit. I doubt very much that they had any sort of epiphany concerning privacy.
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Your first two points make sense to me. But in my experience, Ring does record footage, even if no motion is "detected." It just throws it away after a period of days, based on the user's price tier.
Public interest (Score:3)
Police are necessary, except where they are worse than the criminals. Even where the cops are good, they're still human and should never be trusted to not have motives that are not aligned with yours, or to be above bending rules and laws for their own benefit.
Oversight is mandatory if you want decent policing. Never give anything to a cop they don't have the legal authority to compel you to hand over. They can get a warrant / production order if it is important enough to them. Yes, it makes their job more difficult and tedious. BFD, it's their job. It's more important to protect society from people given dangerous authority and no accountability.
Side-Stepping the Warrant Process, Liability (Score:3)
This is a good move by Amazon as it likely reduces legal liability on their part. In America, law enforcement is allowed to request anything of you. (It doesn't hurt to ask.) They cannot however demand all things from you. For that, they need a warrant or one of a few justifications that would be argued in court at a later date.
The problem is that most people don't understand the nuance of their rights, the authority of law enforcement, or the consequences of certain actions, so they may just comply because they assume that every request is effectively a court-backed warrant. If someone provides video as requested by law enforcement in relation to a crime and in the process incriminates him/herself for something unrelated to the original request, they may turn around and blame Amazon. They may assert that since Amazon is facilitating this conversation between law enforcement and a camera-owner, that Amazon is validating the request as 100% legitimate and that the owner is required to comply.
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Do Police Still Have Access to Your Camera? (Score:2)
They can also look at your stored data to see if there's anything interesting. I believe this is why the video data is stored outside of the US and EU so they aren't bound by annoying privacy laws. This incl
Ring better be prepared to start getting warrants (Score:2)
Amazon's Ring home doorbell unit says it will stop letting police departments request..
Um, Amazon. I think you misunderstand your relationship with the authorities here.
It seems like tool is more for YOUR convenience than anything. The authorities can certainly request footage And Order you to deliver it.
Under current Legal standards the police can also just write a general order to provide them blanket access to all the Ring footage for everyone. This does Not even require a warrant, because Your
Collin Robinson & Nextdoor (Score:2)
Helping police not helping (corporations) (Score:2)
Police and fire departments will have to seek a warrant ...
While most people happily assume the police have valid reasons for demanding footage, this protects customers from more overbearing police requests. It also protects Amazon from ceaseless requests by police.
A few weeks ago, Google claimed they were no longer archiving a lot of subscriber's data, a move that will affect police more than Google (who needs fresh data to sell).
Privacy vs. safety should be an informed choice. (Score:2)
Subscribe and Spy (Score:2)
What they don't tell you is that police can now only request footage if they subscribe to the new Prime Surveillance subscription plan. Contact your representative for pricing.