Amazon's Home Surveillance Company Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in its Advertisements (vice.com) 149
Amazon's home surveillance company Ring is using video captured by its doorbell cameras in Facebook advertisements that ask users to identify and call the cops on a woman whom local police say is a suspected thief. From a report: In the video, the woman's face is clearly visible and there is no obvious criminal activity taking place. The Facebook post shows her passing between two cars. She pulls the door handle of one of the cars, but it is locked. The video freezes on a still of the woman's face from two different angles: "If you recognize this woman, please contact the Mountain View Police Department ... please share with your neighbors," text superimposed on the video says. In a post alongside the video, Ring urges residents of Mountain View, California to contact the police department if they recognize her.
Hooray (Score:1)
Precrime is just around the corner.
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It sounds like you disapprove of our actions.
This can only be a case of misunderstanding, and you'll be referred for reeducation.
Don't bother disputing me, my conclusions are pre-certain which is the same thing as fact.
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If you try to open someone's car door or door to their home - it is not pre-crime anymore. You do that, you need to answer some questions. Maybe it was an innocent mistake. If so, that is fine; no harm, no foul. However, it is not wrong to expect an explanation when someone violates your property.
captcha: honing
Re:Hooray (Score:5, Informative)
If you try to open someone's car door or door to their home - it is not pre-crime anymore.
The video shows her jiggling door handles, but according to the police (the police, not Amazon) she was also recorded actually breaking into cars. So, apparently, they have strong evidence that she is a criminal.
There are many websites that display photos and recordings of suspected criminals. Some even offer rewards for information leading to an arrest.
There is nothing new or wrong about what Amazon is doing.
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And how many lives do they ruin in the name of profits? It's not like they broadcast retractions when the person is found innocent or wait for a guilty verdict.
Last case I heard about, cops search car, find something that looks suspicious, their crappy tester gives a positive for crack, and show is broadcast, ruining the persons life. No mention that the more accurate test was negative and charges dropped.
Sounds like this is common.
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I have to believe you are mistaken in its application. It's been on the books for years, and there are enough sleazeball liars.....err....lawyers out there that would ambulance chase this down for a cut of the profits it it were doable. I just don't buy sleazy bastards 'not thinking of it.'
While you might be able to control your image being used commercially, this likely slips past that due to the criminal involvement. I don't think I approve of Amazon doing it (seems like a conflict of interest becaus
Re:Hooray (Score:5, Insightful)
For what, showing someone in a public place attempting a crime? Good luck with that.
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In public view then, pedant. If you can be seen from someone standing in the middle of the street, you have zero expectation of privacy.
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What Martha and I have been saying for ages is that you simply can not trust some sorts of people. Maybe it's the more brown folks, maybe it's the less affluent, maybe it's the less educated. But I think not. Here in Mountain View, CA I'm willing to bet that the person most likely to try and steal from you is Amazon.
Oh, you won't recognize it as "stealing" so much, because you'll think that you're paying annual Prime fees for that overnight delivery, soon to be a 30 minute drone drop. You'll not be able
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What slander? The police confirmed she is a suspect, she is by definition a suspect.
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I'm not sure you know what a "suspect" is... In fact you may be shocked, Shocked! I tell you! to find out that police not only publish identifying information about suspects but they actually arrest and incarcerate them every single day.
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and if they have the full video of you trying to open someone's car, what are you going to say when they present the evidence in deposition?
Re: rev up those ambulance chasers boys (Score:3, Insightful)
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"Well if I remembered that then I probably wouldn't go around trying to open the wrong car doors. Silly me, huh? Why don't you make a Federal case out of it?"
Re: rev up those ambulance chasers boys (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought it was my boyfriend's car. He let me out at the door and parked.
That is a good story if the car matches his, and video evidence shows that he was nearby at the time.
But you still need to explain the video of the suspect jiggling the handles on a dozen other cars.
Re: rev up those ambulance chasers boys (Score:2)
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This implausible story is not going to meet the "reasonable doubt" criteria.
She would be more believable if she claimed she was separated at birth from an identical twin.
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No need to be so elaborate:
"I was looking for my car. I kept trying the wrong car because I was drunk."
Re: rev up those ambulance chasers boys (Score:2)
I have OCD with a compulsion to check people have locked their cars.
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If they have the full video of me trying to open someone's car door, then rest assured
my car will either be the same color and model... which... happens to me more than
I'd like to admit.
However, that fact won't compensate me for being tackled by a random idiot who
decides to do more than call, or people following me around with cameras when I have
no clue why, or any of the other things that could come of a campaign like this.
Moreover, the video could just be someone who looks like me, not me.
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What makes you want to defend this behavior? Are you a habitual random car door checker? You should be confronted, and tackled if needed, and maybe you'll learn not to act like that, because that's something that only thieves do.
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Only thieves make mistakes? There was a case recently here of a woman driving the wrong car for 2 weeks due to a similar mistake. Police believed her. Another one was someone reporting that their van had been burglarized, with a bunch of stuff missing. eventually it turned out they had the wrong van.
Not only do some cars look the same, they even accept the same keys occasionally.
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Have mod points so posting AC. I once owned a red Cavalier and let a friend drive it to the PX (store on a military base) to pick up a few things. He started to pull out of the parking lot and was surrounded by several people yelling at him. My friend was driving a different red Cavalier.
It was all sorted out without violence, especially after the other red cavalier was still sitting in the lot, and both keys unlocked doors on either car.
Don't touch other people's stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
yes you can sue, but what are you going to say when they ask you why you did it?
This is what Ring was made for. To get the images of these people to the public
Re:Don't touch other people's stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)
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yep, a network to find scumbags and thieves that police had no resources to track before
Re:Don't touch other people's stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real scumbags aren't the ones on the streets. Steal $1 billion from MF Global, get elected governor of NJ like Jon "Heroin OD Son" Corzine did. Possibly steal a $100 purse, get your photo plastered all over Facebook, without even absolute evidence of guilt.
Sell $500 worth of heroin, go to prison for 5 years. Sell billions of opiates like the Sacklers did, get your name on a bunch of med schools and museums.
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The tiny benefit for the thief is dwarfed so thoroughly by the suffering and damages to the victim it is maddening. If things keep getting worse we will have
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Simplest is to make heroin available. They've been experimenting here with good results, junkies knowing they have their next fix becoming productive members of society but the right wingers scream about it.
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Not as effective as that. Due to health concerns in polluted environments, face masks. It will look odd at first and take a while to adapt, but they simply can not be made illegal because they will improve your health if you use them in metropolitan areas and avoid breathing in germs and other toxic particles.
Sure police will be able to ask you to show your face but they can not require you to take off the mask, just quickly show your face, the same goes for any commercial premises. Sure they can ask you t
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RING was built to create a national surveillance network that bypasses restrictions on governments doing so.
What restrictions are you referring to exactly?
There are no restrictions to police surveillance on public property, which you may not have noticed that is the only type of images being used here.
If they ever started using imagery from inside homes that the home owners didn't specifically release to the police, then you'll have a complaint.
Only police department budgets have kept this from being a thing, but not due to any laws.
If tax payers were OK paying extra for such a budget then it would have happened
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Yeah, well snitches get ... an additional 10% discount on one Amazon purchase!
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"I wasn't paying attention and I thought it was my car."
We've all done it. Now we can lose our jobs, our friends, and our ability to rent an apartment for it.
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except in this case it seems there is a complaint to the police and they have her stealing a purse on camera
and who uses a key to unlock a car these days when remotes have been around for decades?
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then you should have no trouble finding your old car in a lot of newer cars
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Even if she did have keyless entry, it's possible that she thought it didn't work.
Then why did she jiggle the door handles of other cars, that looked nothing like "hers"?
And when she found one unlocked, why didn't she get in and try to drive it if she thought it was hers? Instead, she rummaged through the car looking for stuff to steal.
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Our current car doesn't have a remote. It is a base model. Although it is over 10 years old at this point.
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This is why I won’t touch Ring or any other Amazon networked product. I installed a DoorBird instead: you can pull an RTSP video stream off it for your favourite video surveillance software. And while the app works through Doorbird’s servers, you can set it to “LAN only”, and/or firewall it if you are paranoid: it’ll work just fine without the ability to phone ho
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Re:Don't touch other people's stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? "My mind was elsewhere and I thought it was my car, then I remembered I parked one street over".
The fact they only show you a short bit of video with no obvious criminal activity taking place doesn't mean there is no other video of the same person doing something actually criminal. She may be less identifiable in that video; her face may be partially obscured or some other issue. They're showing the video where the identification can be best made, not the only video available.
You incorrectly assume that the only action this woman was seen taking was pulling on one car door handle. I'm sure that Amazon's lawyers have had a look at this ad, like every ad, and have vetted the claims it makes.
Turn off smart quotes in your posting.
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Someone did this to my car many years ago. They actually ended up levering the door open, presumably with a crowbar, but it was just out of shot so all we go on tape was them trying the door handles.
The cops weren't that interested, despite the video evidence. Apparently in the past when it went to court the suspect just claimed that they were drunk and mistook the car for their own, and there is no proof they took a crowbar to it. You need really direct evidence of a crime taking place for a conviction.
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Boy, it's a good thing you're not assuming anything. Only really stupid people ever do that, amiright?
There are reasonable assumptions and there are unreasonable ones. Assuming that a deep-pocket corporation like Amazon would review ads for legal problems prior to distributing them to the world is a reasonable assumption. Assuming they're just taking random pictures of random people and slandering them is an unreasonable one.
The stupid assumption is that the only video of this person is the short bit you get shown in the ad. That's so far from reasonable that only someone with an agenda against the source
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Why? âoeMy mind was elsewhere and I thought it was my car, then I remembered I parked one street overâ.
Exactly, we've all done it. I frequently forget what street I park my two car garage and it's contents on :P
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Why? “My mind was elsewhere and I thought it was my car, then I remembered I parked one street over”.
If that's why the police want you for questioning than so be it. Turn yourself in and talk to them, until then you're a suspect in the eyes of the police.
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You may need to watch more porch thief videos. People of all levels of pigmentation are stealing. The ones that stick out are those who don't look like the rest of the folks on the street. Smart thieves blend in. They either look like (or are) part of the neighborhood or steal packages while driving a delivery van for another company. In my neck of the woods we had a couple of crooked drivers from an office supply company stealing Amazon packages off of people's porches.
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Even if they were guilty of breaking into the car that doesn't give Amazon the rights to profit from using their image without permission in advertising.
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This will not end well. (Score:5, Insightful)
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What tactic?
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Police asking for information leading to people who are suspects who are wanted for questioning?
Well abuse away. We've been "abusing" this since the days before electricity.
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There is already a problem with people calling the cops because someone was doing X while black. Making their abuse more anonymous and easier to get away with isn't going to improve the situation.
In the UK there is a crime called "wasting police time" which is sometimes used against people who do that kind of thing. Is there nothing in the US to prevent people using he cops as a form of harassment?
Good advertising (Score:2)
That is pretty good advertising. If you are out in public you can be on video and it can be posted anywhere, anytime by anyone. If we don't like it, we need to change the laws. Also, pulling a car handle is a potential sign of "obvious criminal activity".
Call the cops ... (Score:2)
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Or his reporter girlfriend.
Hey MSMASH? Love the headline. (Score:4, Insightful)
Love the clickbaity inflammatory headline. "Home Surveillance Company"
Niiiiiice.
Carry on, whether your clickbaity headline will stir the insta-outrage you so clearly want remains to be seen.
I guess "Home Security Company" just doesn't have the same triggering effect.
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You get a D-minus as a Slashdot Pedant.
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When the original comment is about specific word choice, word choice fucking matters. There is no pedantry involved. Surveillance and security aren't synonyms. Further, I get that you're trying to say a surveillance company is synonymous with a security company. The truth is, it's not the same thi
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are there no laws governing this kind of equipment in the US?
Ring doorbells are pretty much illegal in the UK. When you set up CCTV at home you have an obligation to make sure it only captures stuff happening on your property and doesn't invade other people's privacy, i.e. it's not able to see them coming and going or look into their windows.
Given the fixed nature of the Ring camera, typically facing out towards the street and other properties, there is no practical way to comply with those requirements.
facebook better have actual evidence (Score:3, Informative)
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or they can be sued for millions, which would be well deserved
Nope. No evidence required. The police want her for questioning and there's nothing preventing them from publishing a photo taken of said person. If people could be sued for millions for this it would have been done by now ... except they'd have been sued for 10s of thousands because that was a lot of money in the 1800s when this practice was used far more widely.
Porch pirates (Score:2)
Re:Porch pirates (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. We need to catch up to China on this. With their Social Credit System, they are way ahead of us in becoming a total hellhole of revenge-seeking gossip mongers.
Doubtful (Score:1)
Double-edged question (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good one!
Does she have a reasonable expectation of privacy where this was taken?
OR
Is her likeness being used in a commercial application without permission or compensation?
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Perhaps she should walk into a police station to file a report.
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Is her likeness being used in a commercial application
You're going to have trouble convincing people that this is a commercial application simply because the name that sponsored the advertisement. I can't see any logo, I can't see any product advertisement. What I can see is a standard practice that has been used since the 1800s.
no problem here (Score:2)
If the police is already looking for the individual in the ad then I have no problems with it. It would be no different than the picture in the post office or on the news.
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If they are and know who it is. If they have to make a case based on eyewitness identification, their case might be screwed up. I'd say leave the photo publication up to the cops.
Shouldn't be commericialized (Score:1)
It would be one thing for the police department to issue a press release asking for the public's help.
When this gets commercialized WITHOUT the request of a police agency, it makes me question the motivation and integrity of the commercial entity.
When it gets commercialized AT THE REQUEST of a police agency but the overall tone is still promotional, it makes me question the integrity of the police department.
About the only way for this to work is if it's done as a public service announcement created by the
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Sorry, we don't need *The Government* to post pics of criminals when we can just do it ourselves, or let Amazon do it. So what if it's a selling tactic for them. They're not the ones stealing the packages. Lock those criminals up, and take those who have a problem with it to task for having poor moral judgement.
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we don't need *The Government* to post pics of criminals when we can just do it ourselves
And then they catch someone. And they drag him into court. But his defense attorney says that your post contaminated eyewitness recollections. Because maybe they picked the guy out of a lineup because they saw your post. And the judge throws the case out. And the prosecutor says, "Thanks a lot, buddy. You just screwed up our case."
I just bought a new Ring doorbell .... (Score:5, Interesting)
The weird thing is, I've seen these things out on store shelves for a long time, but just didn't want to spend the money for one. And really, I didn't even know anyone else who had one either. But now, it feels like they just suddenly exploded in popularity?
Just the other day, I decided to look into a video doorbell because my $10 battery operated wireless doorbell and chime stopped working. Probably just needed a new battery in the button part mounted by the door, but even the white plastic button casing was yellowing, and the weird battery it took probably cost as much as a whole new doorbell. I just had a frustrating incident, too, where FedEx kept claiming nobody was home to sign for a package I was waiting on, despite me working from home those days and knowing nobody actually knocked on my door. (My dog barks up a storm if you even go into the yard, but not a peep out of her.)
I figured it was time to get a doorbell that could let me know with video if someone was really at my door or not.
I couldn't find anything for sale, off the shelf, that looked like a better value than the "Ring" product, so I bought their $99 720p video model. (For $200-ish, you can get high res 4K video but that really seemed like overkill for my needs.)
Not more than an hour after I got it home, my wife gets all excited about it and tells me how all of her co-workers have Ring doorbells now and share any odd videos with each other, etc. etc. A day after I set ours up, I see people discussing another one someone in town used to capture video of a drunk lady who kept ringing their bell in the middle of the night, apparently incorrectly thinking it was her house. The "Neighbors" feature in it shows a bunch of them in my neighborhood that have reported various odd things (including weird animals in people's yards).
I also saw a big article on Medium.com by some guy slamming the Ring devices as being "racist". He was on some big rant how they're mostly owned and used by wealthier people and unfairly pass around photos of the "undesirables" who are usually minorities in cities, etc. etc. Uh .... ok .... just not buying THAT one.
But yeah, I *do* think Amazon needs to realize that a lot of Ring users seem to be sharing videos NOT just because they think they're helping catch criminals like a digital neighborhood watch program.... Most of what I've seen has been more along the lines of, "Check out the crazy thing that just happened on MY property!"
Skank treat (Score:2)
Hey I know her (Score:2)
That's Becky, she's been running around CA raising money to start a large e-commerce company and just recently brought some high-tech home security cameras to market...... no wait, that's not right...
Oh I know! That's Marjorie, she's a journalist, and just started doing research on the working conditions at Amazon warehouses, and her last story highlighted all the counterfeit problems Amazon has been having....... wait, no that's not right....
I Got it! That's the high end hooker 'ol Bezos has been "working