Amazon's Ring Wanted To Use 911 Calls To Activate Its Video Doorbells (cnet.com) 91
Ring considered building a tool that would use calls to the 911 emergency number to automatically activate the video cameras on its smart doorbells, according to emails obtained by CNET. From the report: The Amazon-owned company isn't currently working on the project, but it told a California police department in August 2018 that the function could be introduced in the "not-so-distant future." In the emails, Ring described a system in which a 911 call would trigger the cameras on Ring doorbells near the site of the call. The cameras would start recording and streaming video that police could then use to investigate an incident. Owners of the Ring devices would have to opt in to the system, the emails said.
"Currently, our cameras record based on motion alerts," Steve Sebestyen, vice president of business development for Ring, said in an email that CNET obtained through a public records request. "However, we are working with interested agencies and cities to expand the device owners controls to allow for situations where a CFS [call-for-service] event triggers recording within the proximity of an event." It's unclear how long Ring had contemplated this idea and how many cities it proposed this plan to, but the project is no longer being pursued.
"Currently, our cameras record based on motion alerts," Steve Sebestyen, vice president of business development for Ring, said in an email that CNET obtained through a public records request. "However, we are working with interested agencies and cities to expand the device owners controls to allow for situations where a CFS [call-for-service] event triggers recording within the proximity of an event." It's unclear how long Ring had contemplated this idea and how many cities it proposed this plan to, but the project is no longer being pursued.
No longer being pursued, (Score:2)
so that's that.
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It means they're no longer pursuing the idea of having an official system that owners opt-in to.
Now, they decided to just turn your cameras on whenever they want to.
in other news, we stopped spying on phones (Score:4, Insightful)
“There will be no analytic access to the collected metadata after this time,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a statement.
Instead, telecom companies will retain and access the data on their customers. The NSA may then seek warrants from the secretive courts created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to compel these companies to hand over pertinent information on terrorism suspects and affiliates.
See, its all nice, we won't abuse and lie about this, we promise :)
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Also note "terrorism suspects and affiliates" = "anybody we do not like"
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For ordinary crooks this is obvious overkill, hence the claim that this is about "terrorism". The enemies of freedom have no honor at all and they will lie directly without the least bit of shame. And, yes, of course this will do absolutely nothing about any real terrorists, i.e. the kind with some minimal field-craft.
Close (Score:2)
How close is "close"? And how real are the "incidents"? Could the police just claim there is an incident in a particular location and start recording?
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Re: Close (Score:4, Insightful)
What expectation of privacy did people formerly have when standing in front of your front door?
Re: Close (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this function is more about the people driving or running by your house on the street. A 911 call from your neighbor could activate all the cameras on your block (that might not have been triggered by motion) to catch a picture of the suspect on his way in/out. Many cameras can see the street, even if activity there doesn't trigger them.
Good question about privacy at my front door. The only 'interesting' pictures my security cameras (non-Ring) have is a few people that probably had no business there walk up, see the camera and turn around. The UPS guys seem to like them. There's a pic of them delivering the package to the front door and a deterrent to porch pirates.
The only experience I've had with catching a 'crime' on camera was some pervert using my shrubs to hide and jerk off while watching the teenage girls next door. I called the sheriff. Deputy shows up and I describe what I saw. He asked about the camera's coverage and seemed relieved when I told him it didn't cover the bushes. I think he knew who the peeping Tom was (probably the mayor's nephew) and didn't really seem enthusiastic about having to catch him.
Re: Close (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this function is more about the people driving or running by your house on the street. A 911 call from your neighbor could activate all the cameras on your block (that might not have been triggered by motion) to catch a picture of the suspect on his way in/out. Many cameras can see the street, even if activity there doesn't trigger them..
All true. I believe the expectation of privacy while travelling down the street is the same or probably less than that at a front door though. When people complain about a loss of privacy in cases like this I believe they are complaining about the wrong thing. What we have with pervasive surveilling of public spaces is maybe better described as a potential loss of anonymity.
I'm actually unsure how big a deal that is.
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The former seems to be something everyone accepts simply because it has always been a fact. The latter is the part that concerns me more, particularly when the recording could be pulled up many years from now and presented out of context.
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Do you distinguish between an expectation of "someone might see me" versus "my activity will be audio and video recorded and preserved forever"?
Not really. It's actually been a possibility for decades, just getting more likely.
I'm not sure it's a big deal, in public places.
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The photons reflected from your body while outside will travel through space forever; and no one gives a shit about those.
Too much data will be like looking for that hard drive with 10 bitcoin in a landfill. not worth the effort.
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like looking for that hard drive with 10 bitcoin in a landfill
Not really. That Ring data will be archived and indexed somewhere. No meaning may be attached to it today. But facial recognition is getting better. And ANPR is here today. Put that together with some clever link analysis and lots of cold cases will be closed. Do you remember why you took that detour through a particular neighborhood three years ago? Where's your alibi?
Worse yet, some cases never get closed. Sure, someone else will get pinched for those burglaries. But your license plate shows up too many
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By "people" do you mean me?
That's why all of my security cameras are sequestered as though they are hostile agents. They cannot see my home network. They are locked away in their own network that cannot get out to anywhere. The only thing they see is equivalent to the incoming Internet (WAN) port of a typical home router. I have a ZoneMinder server that pulls the video feeds from them, and that is what I connect to from my phone or other outside connection.
As far as any of my camera systems know, they'r
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I mean anyone.
For whatever it might be worth I use a similar system for my video surveillance stuff, but it covers more than my front door too.
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My point was that "people" who go by my front door shouldn't have any expectation of privacy from MY cameras, but *I* should have an expectation of privacy from my own cameras. I don't trust Ring at all, and I don't think those cameras work unless they can talk to Amazon's servers. I don't really care to know the answer because I'm never giving them any of my money for that garbage.
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You can make your property behave as you wish, but you still don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy when in public. That's all I'm saying, can't 'lose' something one never had.
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The problem is that your privacy was controllable. When you stepped out into your own front yard, you could see all the people who could see you. Now, it's like there is a news crew in front of your house 24/7, broadcasting everything you do to whomever decides to tune in.
That's a problem. I'm pretty sure you would get pissed if a news crew actually did that even though it's technically legal unless you find some way to accuse them of stalking or harassment. To me, a Ring camera pointed at your front do
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The problem is that your privacy was controllable.
I'm not certain that was true. You can observe those observing you, but the level of control a person has ever had legally over being observed in public is a lot lower than most people seem to think. Consider the scenarios where it's always been legal (if not polite) for a person in public to be photographed and then see if anything has changed.
One can be observed when in public, always has been this way. It's probably part of the definition of being in public.
Other than bothering some people's feelings, wh
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You misunderstood what I meant. Your level of control involved the types of behaviors you engaged in when being observed.
Think about it being 1am, and you realize you forgot to get your mail. You look out your window, and you see that nobody is around, so you run out in your PJs with your crazy-hair and bunny slippers to grab your mail. Well, now you never have that "it's 1am so nobody's looking" privacy. You also never really know when someone is recording you. In the past, you did because cameras wer
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I'm not certain that was true. You can observe those observing you,
That's not always true, either. I quite often look out my front window across at my neighbor's house. I'm behind a blind and he can't see me at all. I'm observing him in his front yard.
And, of course, the quintessential example is in this discussion where one person says his security cam caught a perv in the bushes watching the neighbor girls. But then he says that the camera didn't actually cover the bushes, so how it actually caught someone in the bushes is a mystery.
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None of that involves privacy. You never had privacy in any of those settings and you continue to not have privacy in those settings. You might have had something, I'm not sure what the right word for taking a chance on not being observed and winning is but whatever that word is, it was more likely in the past. That's true.
But that's not privacy. That's rolling the dice on not being seen doing something in public you'd rather not be seen doing.
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Hardly a stretch.
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As far as I know there has never been any expectation of privacy when in public. A lot of people have become accustomed to a sort of assumed anonymity that comes from large crowds, places where everyone is a stranger, and just generally being forgettable, but an actual right to privacy in public seems a bit of an oxymoron to me.
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The difference is that your activities in your own front yard weren't being broadcast to the entire world before.
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They certainly COULD have been, and I'd bet in some cases were. It's always been this way. Have a look at some of the photographers rights documents from the 1970s as a reference.
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Except not. Back in the 1970s, video cameras were very large, conspicuous, and expensive. There weren't cameras pointed at your front yard 24/7. If they were, then you were probably being investigated by the FBI, which was not very likely for the average person.
Prior to the last decade, you had a reasonable expectation of privacy if you looked around and didn't see anyone. You don't now because there are cameras everywhere.
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Not true.
For instance some friends of mine who had a rather modest lifestyle used to live across from a few businesses including a few that certainly had 24x7 video surveillance going on that included the street and homes across it. It happens.
Unless you're asserting that your neighbors have invisible cameras aimed at you the difference is hard to see, except it now applies to YOU instead of just people who have decided to live in less expensive neighborhoods that border businesses.
People are making a fuss
Re: Close (Score:4, Interesting)
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Exactly this. If someone starts following you around from the moment you walk out your front door, recording you on their phone, you can get a restraining order for stalking/harassment. Somehow, that doesn't seem to apply to these types of security cameras.
Not wanting to be an a-hole, I have my cameras positioned high up and angled specifically in a way that captures cars on the road, but as little as possible of my neighbors' yards. For me to capture an image of my neighbor across the street, he would h
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How would you feel if someone with a camera and microphone was following you around in public every moment, you couldn't shake them or lose them, there's always right there, just short of in your Personal Space?
That's actually how high profile personalities live. They are constantly surrounded by people at their service, if not by journalists who would do anything to catch and publish their most embarrassing moments. And yet, many people don't mind being famous.
Now how would I feel? Assuming the guy with the camera doesn't interfere with my life, I would probably forget about him and continue as if he wasn't there. And I think it would be the most common reaction.
It reminds me of a face-to-face communication train
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You think wrongly, then.
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How would you feel if someone with a camera and microphone was following you around in public every moment, you couldn't shake them or lose them, there's always right there, just short of in your Personal Space?
I would wonder what I did to be so famous all the sudden.
You strike out at them ...
That would probably be felony battery if you connected, assault if you miss I guess?
Just like cooking a crab, they turned the heat ....
Ah yes, they. Them.
They are your neighbors opting in to a feature of a service those same neighbors paid for.
In the more general case there may be issues with mass public surveillance, data warehousing, and mining of that data, but it's not a privacy issue if it merely records things that one has no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding. A discussion about whate
Re: Close (Score:2)
Microphone is not treated the same as a camera. You cannot record people's conversations without their consent in many states, and in most states that you can, it's only if you are engaged in conversation with them or they otherwise have the expectation that you can hear them.
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I don't think this is nearly the problem you perceive it to be. If I'm in public, I chose to be there.
And for the record, I'm a huge fan of police bodycams.
David Brin has a book about surveillance society - which unfortunately, I never finished reading. But I did get to the part where he makes the point (and I agree with him), that it would be nice if all these cameras were publicly accessible and all accesses were published.
So your daughter goes to play in the park. You access the park cameras, to keep
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How did you opt-out of someone pointing a video camera out their front window?
Or security cameras?
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My neighbour has a Nest doorbell too. I don't expect a company to be recording me every time I leave to go shopping or anything else. I'm sure that they are analyzing the recordings to determine people and finding any patterns. So any neighbours are having their patterns determined. When they go to work, when they come home, when they go shopping, when they head out on Friday night, etc. Alphabet is adding this information to whatever else they can get, such as from their thermostats.
I can't imagine that Go
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Sorry, Amazon, not Google.
Don't be obtuse (Score:2)
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How close is "close"? And how real are the "incidents"? Could the police just claim there is an incident in a particular location and start recording?
Yup.
Why is Amazon building dystopia? (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Why is Amazon building dystopia?"
I know you are being rhetorical, but just to answer it bluntly, there are two reasons: power and money - the same two things to which every human left to their own devices will succumb.
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Amazon loses money from package theft, these cameras are package thief deterrents.
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After my experiences with Amazon Logistics it would take a miracle for their drones to get a package anywhere near the door, let alone where the doorbell camera could see it.
Perhaps if they put a camera in AMZN's preferred delivery location: under the rain spout next to the garage, then, perhaps your argument would be valid. However, Amazon hasn't released it's Ring companion for the rain spout. I heard it is going to be called "Drip".
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This only happened to me once, but one of my packages was delivered next to my garage door which at the time was in an alleyway behind our homes where everyone has their garages and also where we put out the trash every week. They also put it there on the day that trash gets picked up right next to where I always put the garbage can.
I happened to see it before the garbage pickup came, but who knows if they would have realized an unopened box sitting right next to the trash can was not trash?
Everything else
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... power and money - the same two things to which every human left to their own devices will succumb.
By far not everyone. But those that already have power and most that have money have it because they crave it. And these people cannot get enough because they are deeply defective. So while power often corrupts, it usually is a certain kind of the corrupt that want power in the first place. There definitely is a survivorship bias here.
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Anytime a ring a camera can be used to stop or solve a crime it's a plus for the sales of the item. They are all about working with law enforcement to help make the owners neighborhood safer and to stop crime this isn't a down side for someone who is actually concerned living in a safe crime free neighborhood.
Other security firms work with law enforcement you just don't hear about it because it's not amazon.
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Exactly. I could see putting something on the app to easily allow you to share someone with the local police. You should have to be the one to decide whether you do or not.
You could - if you so choose - even register it with the local police and if you see something that you want to send to them, just make it a click in an app or something - you could even add a message.
And you could even opt-in to things like requests for footage from the local cops.
Right now if the cops wanted to see who had video foota
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Anytime a ring a camera can be used to stop or solve a crime it's a plus for the sales of the camera, up to maximum of one per household.
Anytime a ring a camera can be used to sue or prosecute someone it's a full stop for the sales of all items to that ex-customer and his or her household.
I don't see Amazon's math on this.
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On other hand, Amazon is there to sell you consumer items.
Yes, all large corporations exist only to improve peoples lives and sell you the products you need. Our goal is to make people happy. Your Brand is formed by what you do, not what you say. Always, read ALWAYS put customers first. Invent and Be Patient. Revolutionary ideas need time to be realised. Accept your limitations and work your way out of the box by invention. Constraints are an opportunity for critical thinking.
ahahahah sorry i can't type this bullshit anymore... We are here on a mission of conqu
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On other hand, Amazon is there to sell you consumer items
A key, and much hated "feature", of Ring is the social network it comes with as well as the monthly fee for "storing your videos". If you don't pay this fee, you will find the device doesn't really work very well. Once my free year ran out I have very little visibility about what happens at my front door unless I happen to be there. It's kind of a piece of shit unless you opt in to their network.
All I really want is a device that will store footage
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The plans on their website don't seem too bad to me.
Ring Protect Plans [ring.com]
If I owned one, I wouldn't hesitate to shell out $3 a month for the basic plan.
I wasn't even aware of the social network, but I guess that's the Neighbors app, which I didn't really research much, but that's not a requirement, is it? I'd want to opt out of that I think.
OTOH, Gladys Kravitz [fandom.com] would love it.
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I wouldn't hesitate to shell out $3 a month for the basic plan.
I forgot to add that "For just 10 cents a day you could save a child's life....or you could get Ring's Protect Basic Plan".
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On other hand, Amazon is there to sell you consumer items.
Are they? I thought the retail division only exists as a test bed for AI, automation, and logistics experiments.
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Porch piracy prevention, really.
It costs money for Amazon to deliver something to you, only to have some thief steal it when it got delivered. It costs you frustration, it costs Amazon money (in replacing the item, customer service, etc), and no one benefits. Or being forced to drive to the depot to pick up said item (usually the next d
Squirrels Get Arrested at Alarmingly High Levels (Score:2, Funny)
My cameras trigger on squirrels, birds, and chipmunks. The police would run out of tiny handcuffs.
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Big Brother Cometh (Score:1)
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I could definitely see apartment complexes and HOAs and maybe just housing developers including them as "features".
Interior security cameras will hopefully be left out of this. Didn't most people freak out when they heard that hackers could be watching their baby monitors?
I suppose you could add a feature that automatically sends video to police if your burglar alarm goes off or maybe a panic button were activated.
That reminds me, I just saw this news story this week:
A Tampa man watched live surveillance v [tampabay.com]
John (Score:1)
Who owns the recordings done by Ring? (Score:2)
If 911 is called it's possibly the worst day of someone's life. The last thing a person should have worry about is big-tech selling porch video aftermath of an assault or medical emergency.
Re:Who owns the recordings done by Ring? (Score:4, Funny)
We noticed recently that you were assaulted and suffered a grave injury. We are very deeply moved by your frightening situation, and understand how painful and terrifying it may be. We thought at this time that you may be interested in buying a new walker, and how about these self defense devices?
Please accept our many condolences. RENEW YOUR PRIME SUBSCRIPTION TODAY!
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Google owns it. And if you want to keep it in the cloud for a few months you have to pay a monthly fee.
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Sorry, Amazon, not Google .
opt in (Score:2)
Owners of the Ring devices would have to opt in to the system
what about the people who just happened to be walking by when someone on that block called 911? do they get to opt in?
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What expectation of privacy do you think you have walk walking along a public street?
Re: opt in (Score:2)
We still have our right to photograph idiots in public, donâ(TM)t we?
Have strong penalties when authorities abuse privacy rights. Have a system of independent audits and checks. We canâ(TM)t have people dying just because you are afraid someone will find out you went to the strip club.
Damn, I hate corporations. (Score:1)
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People are more and more like small, frightened children. They are afraid of everything and everyone. And that opens the door wide to all kinds of shady operators, from those that want to make a profit to those that want to remove individual freedoms and dictate how everybody has to live and what everybody has to think.
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I don't get it. How is a security camera watching your neighbors? It is watching your own property.
Why would anyone buy a Ring at this point? (Score:1)
It's out in the open that Amazon is in bed with the police and are more than happy to share any data they collect from it with them, including audio and video. This isn't Big Brother putting a telescreen in your home and telling you to like it at gunpoint, this is people actively making the decision to pay a corporation to install a device that spies on them and their neighbors in their homes. It is resoundingly sad how clear products like Ring, Echo, etc have proven that the average person values a margina
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The average person is terribly stupid and has no clue what is really going on. It takes experiencing the horrors of war and fascism first-hand for these people to understand that these are not good ideas. Now, the average persons that went through that in the west are dying out. And then you have the below-average ones....
How does this work? (Score:2)
How does the doorbell know who or when I'm calling?
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It doesn't. Amazon partners with police departments who operate PSAP's. The PSAP's know where someone is calling from when you call 911. Amazon knows where your doorbell is because you told them. If they could get a signal from the PSAP and were allowed to activate cameras "in the area" it would be easy to associate them based on what was already declared.
from the not-on-my-watch dept (Score:2)
I hope not all calls turn on the cameras (Score:2)
So if someone is having a heart attack will they turn on all the cameras?
Making a determination takes time... (Score:2)
Personally, I'd rather have the cameras turn on in such a case than to waste time and possible footage when it would be useful than to worry about not recording because I'm "only" having a heart attack.
For example, police bodycams often keep a rolling recording going of a couple minutes or so which is retained if the camera is turned on. So let's say the bodycam automatically activates if it records what sounds like a close gunshot. This gives those that are going to review said footage the 2 minutes or s
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What does. that have to do with the situation I outlined? I'm concerned about privacy issues of people. If someone is having a heart attack then there's no need for the cameras to be turned on or any video that is captured to be marked as being associated with that event (if a camera was turned on by someone walking by a house for example).
The cameras should only be triggered in certain events. When someone calls 911 most of the time the situation is known and it can be determined whether or not the cameras