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Privacy United States Technology

Cops Are Giving Amazon's Ring Your Real-Time 911 Caller Data (gizmodo.com) 54

Gizmodo has learned that Amazon's Ring home security system is pursuing contracts with police departments that would grant it direct access to real-time emergency dispatch data. From the report: The California-based company is seeking police departments' permission to tap into the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) feeds used to automate and improve decisions made by emergency dispatch personnel and cut down on police response times. Ring has requested access to the data streams so it can curate "crime news" posts for its "neighborhood watch" app, Neighbors. Ring says it does not provide the personal information of its customers to the authorities without consent. To wit, the company has positioned itself as an intermediary through which police requests access to citizen-captured surveillance footage. When police make a request, they don't know who receives it, Ring says, until a user chooses to share their video. Users are also prompted with the option to review their footage before turning it over.

But how often is one the victims of a crime in their own neighborhood? Likely not enough to stay engaged with the app for too long. Ring's solution is to push out alerts about alleged criminal activity reported nearby in real-time, according to company documents obtained by Gizmodo. Hiring people to monitor police scanners all day, however, is presumably too costly and inefficient. To pull off this trick, Ring needs something better: direct access to raw police dispatch data. Through its police partnerships, Ring has requested access to CAD, which includes information provided voluntarily by 911 callers, among other types of data automatically collected. CAD data is typically compromised of details such as names, phone numbers, addresses, medical conditions and potentially other types of personally identifiable information, including, in some instances, GPS coordinates.
Ring confirmed on Thursday that it does receive location information, including precise addresses from CAD data, which it does not publish to its app. It denied receiving other forms of personal information.

According to internal documents, police CAD data is received by Ring's "Neighbors News team" and is then reformatted before being posted on Neighbors in the form of an "alert" to users in the vicinity of the alleged incident. The document states that Ring's team only posts alerts for eight different crimes: burglary, vehicle break-in and theft, robbery, shots fired, shootings, stabbing, hostage, and arson.
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Cops Are Giving Amazon's Ring Your Real-Time 911 Caller Data

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  • rings (Score:4, Insightful)

    by n3r0.m4dski11z ( 447312 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @09:35PM (#59026544) Homepage Journal

    well there is certainly nothing [wikipedia.org] ominous [wikipedia.org] about the name ring...

    And someone should tell bezos that the circle [wikipedia.org] wasnt a documentary.

    Private companies and mass surveillance, what could go wrong!

  • ALERT! ALERT! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WolfgangVL ( 3494585 ) on Thursday August 01, 2019 @09:35PM (#59026550)

    POOR PERSON detected, 97% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    BROWN PERSON detected, 78% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    PROTESTER detected, 98% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    PETROL POWERED CONVEYANCE detected, 63% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    SALESPERSON detected, 97% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    POLITICAL RIVAL detected, 82% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    TEENAGER detected, 17% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    SEXUAL DEVIANT detected, 92% probability of CRIME. Initializing facial recognition. REPORT?
    OFFICER DISPATCHED! Thank you, CITIZEN_0568. Your neighborhood is safe again, thanks to your diligence, and your friends at AMAZON.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The difference is that a "person" is getting "detected".
      Only after the "crime" is more police work done by humans :)
      In a nation with no privacy every face would be linked back to every photo ID, passport photo, work ID, education ID, drivers licence in real time.
      Does the US do that real time connection between collected ID images and random citizens walking around?

      No name above the face in real time before the crime?
      Privacy is still ok at the city/state level.
      • No name above the face in real time before the crime?

        Privacy is still ok at the city/state level.

        That's just.... "Benign Information Gathering" amiright?

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          That's just a CCTV camera that police get to see. No name over every citizen in real time.
          No local and national name to face database getting used by local police on all citizens before a crime.
          Once the crime is reported/detected then the human police works starts.
          The police will find the criminal.
          Looking back over months of CCTV using advanced math to find the same face helps with that police work :)
          Crime is reduced in the area.
          The world gets to see who did the crime too. No letting the local new
  • "But how often is one the victims of a crime in their own neighborhood?" I'd wager that it's more common than not. Most people are victims of crimes perpetrated by people they know. You're more likely to be assaulted or murdered by someone you know than by a random stranger, and probably also more likely to be robbed by someone who has been to your house than someone who has not.
  • and what is risk of some getting off in court do an them doing something in away the brakes the law?

  • When the first article on here about a ring PR stunt was posted, I posted a half drunk comment that it was most likely dodgy (partly based on my experience working in promotion / fake news). Wasn't 100% sure though. Surprised to see it so rapidly unravel.
  • So the place I work already has something like this : Campus Alerts. When a crime is in progress an email or SMS goes out to anyone set up for the service, then an all clear goes out when the police wrap up. I am not sure how useful it actually is, but it gets pretty mundane quickly
    • by eepok ( 545733 )

      I've worked at two major public universities with similar systems. Both places are ridiculously safe places to be, but given the ease of internet shaming, the nature of universities to need to back up saying that EVERYTHING is their number one priority, and the prevalence of smart phones, we have this type of system.

      And it's used a lot. A LOT. Car window broken. Laptop stolen. Small animal seen wandering. Etc. It's used so much that people quickly begin to think that their campus isn't really all that safe.

      • by jythie ( 914043 )
        Yeah, when to use and not use is the key. In our case, anything less than armed robbery generally doesn't get a push, so there is a message every couple weeks at best.

It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Descartes

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