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.
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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Everyone down every street open a network.
The criminal cannot escape as they move from cam to cam.
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You become your own criminal, numbnuts.
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Not getting a nice new building with bay windows and balconies?
Thats insulated with permits and that meets city design standards?
Should entire parts of a city be left without improvement and with crime?
Lower the crime and new investment will flow back.
Re:People (Score:5, Interesting)
> People will become aware of who is doing crime AC.
And who shows up at a peaceful protest about gay pride, or the ongoing war in Iraq, or to protest abortion. Or who is walking into the union meeting. Or where the child or former spouse of a civil servant. Or who shows up at the planning meetings of the city council. It is inevitable that such personal details be abused by those who have access to the recognition system. Or who show up, and when, to make night deposits at the bank. The question is the scale of abuse, and the limitations on access to it that protect everyone from such abuse.
There are cities such as London with extremely high coverage with CCTV. It's almost never used for solving crime. Even when crime occurs within the view of several cameras, the police refuse to actively pursue the crimes.
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I advise a look at human history. And then a few years of deep shape about what you supported before.
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I can't tell if this is a joke, if 'A' stands for Aldous or you're just immune to irony.
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A tool for police to look after nice parts of a city and lower crime rates by tracking criminals moving around?
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I had the exact, exact same reaction. If I didn't know him specifically for doing this constantly I'd find it fucking HILARIOUS, instead of hilariously thoughtless.
You can see how humanity devolves in the absence of education. Sometimes faster than others.
rings (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
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Never use new tech to see who is actually doing crime and show the world?
Why not detect crime, report it and have the police respond?
Good communities can then go on to enjoy further growth and investment.
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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?
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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
Not in my neighborhood... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not in my neighborhood... (Score:5, Funny)
Citation required.
Moogaloorie, August 1st, 2019, Slashdot article comment section.
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and what is risk of some getting off in court do a (Score:2)
and what is risk of some getting off in court do an them doing something in away the brakes the law?
Re: and what is risk of some getting off in court (Score:2)
That's authentic frontier gibberish
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if a million monkeys were given a million smartphones, would one eventually make a coherent slashdot post?
We're not sure yet, but this simian came close.
Odd (Score:1)
Campus Alerts (Score:2)
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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.
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