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Electronic Frontier Foundation Privacy Government Security

Police Will Pilot a Program To Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras (eff.org) 84

Posted by BeauHD from the privacy-concerns dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: This is not a drill. Red alert: The police surveillance center in Jackson, Mississippi, will be conducting a 45-day pilot program to live stream the Amazon Ring cameras of participating residents. Now, our worst fears have been confirmed. Police in Jackson, Mississippi, have started a pilot program that would allow Ring owners to patch the camera streams from their front doors directly to a police Real Time Crime Center. The footage from your front door includes you coming and going from your house, your neighbors taking out the trash, and the dog walkers and delivery people who do their jobs in your street. In Jackson, this footage can now be live streamed directly onto a dozen monitors scrutinized by police around the clock. Even if you refuse to allow your footage to be used that way, your neighbor's camera pointed at your house may still be transmitting directly to the police.

Only a few months ago, Jackson stood up for its residents, becoming the first city in the southern United States to ban police use of face recognition technology. Clearly, this is a city that understands invasive surveillance technology when it sees it, and knows when police have overstepped their ability to invade privacy. If police want to build a surveillance camera network, they should only do so in ways that are transparent and accountable, and ensure active resident participation in the process. If residents say "no" to spy cameras, then police must not deploy them. The choices you and your neighbors make as consumers should not be hijacked by police to roll out surveillance technologies. The decision making process must be left to communities.
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Police Will Pilot a Program To Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras More

Police Will Pilot a Program To Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras

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  • You mean they already had one of those set up? Does every big PD have a "surveillance center?"

    • well the federal government isn't going to dole out its APCs and rocket launchers, unless theyhave a surveillance center. it pays for itself!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Well, yes. If they want to take advantage of the free money from Fatherland Security (and of course they want it) then they need to set up some sort of centralized monitoring center. They have access to all the traffic cameras and in some places the smart streetlights, IoT sewer water sensors that monitor drug usage by neighborhood served, any drones that they use, and in at least one city they have a reader at several off ramps that records vehicle tire stem RFID chips.

      Don't tell the ridiculous twits her

  • 1. Shit like this has to be nipped in the bud, starting NOW, or like all other cancers, it will grow.
    2. Failing that, I think this will eventually become an issue of interpreting the 4th Amendment; when it was written there were no 'surveillance cameras', cops had to be physically present to 'surveil' you. This is something entirely different, and if America doesn't say 'Hell, no!' then I'd hope the Supreme Court would interpret the Constitution to disallow this sort of shit as violating the 4th Amendment.

    • The people in Jackson Mississippi have plenty of democratic control to stop this should they choose, why do you hate democracy? Why do you want your preferred set of non democratically elected geriatric farts to impose their totalitarian control over those people?

      • I have no fucking idea what you're blathering on about, but I think you need to take your anti-psychotics and go to bed, buddy.

        • Their Mayor controls the Chief of Police and with it the surveillance program, they don't need the supreme court. They can just vote in a Mayor who opposes it.

          • Are you not a U.S. citizen, therefore don't understand how our system of government works? A 'mayor' is not a totalitarian dictator. Anything like this can be challenged in courts with lawsuits. If lower courts can't resolve it, it can go up the chain, potentially all the way to the Supreme Court -- and I believe that if 'programs' like this start becoming popular with police, there will be lawsuits over it, it may cite the 4th Amendment as being violated, and it may go all the way to SCOTUS to be resolved,

            • The Mayor does appoint the Chief of Police, the Chief of Police does have control over his department, the people of Jackson can just vote in another Mayor next election. They don't need the Supreme Court.

              Of course Hitler got elected and all, the people of Jackson might be shitlords who need the Supreme Court to tell them how to live. Democracy doesn't work.

            • Something can be perfectly legal and yet undesirable. The court system isn't designed to protect people from that. The way to deal with a legal government program you don't like is to elect people who also don't like it.

              The Fourth Amendment establishes some rights. It doesn't deal with massive automatic surveillance or data mining, and therefore there is no clear Constitutional ban on them.

              • The 4th Amendment was written long before even the telegraph was invented, let alone doorbell cameras or the Internet or the ability to use both together to create a mass surveillance network. That is one of the purposes the Supreme Court serves, to interpret the intentions of the authors of our Constitution with regard to modern situations and problems. Therefore if such surveillance nets started becoming widespread, and there was pushback (which there certainly would be!), then it is entirely likely that

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by cusco ( 717999 )

                  which there certainly would be!

                  Ah, you dewy-eyed optimist, in England police have access to over two million cameras and the "pushback" hasn't been loud enough to awaken a paranoid mouse.

                  • This isn't England and oh by the way last I heard all those damned cameras you have everywhere haven't made a significant enough reduction in crime to really justify their existence so I don't consider your argument to be valid.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by cusco ( 717999 )

                      Rational arguments and facts don't seem to convince the public any more, if they can whip up the fear there won't be any meaningful resistance. That was my actual point, I'm quite aware of what England's 'panopticon' has accomplished (almost nothing). The police themselves say that two million cameras have allowed them to prevent "dozens" of crimes, not hundreds or even scores, a few dozen over a decade.

                    • Well, ruling people by keeping them in a constant state of terror would certainly explain why it is that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber over time: when you're constantly scared of one thing or another, higher brain functions switch off and you operate almost entirely on hardwired instinct.
                      Might even help explain why obesity is such a problem: constant fear and anxiety raise cortisol levels, which sabotage fat burning. Also makes you want to self-soothe with food, or alcohol, or both.
                      No, I'm n

    • It's safe to expect the following:

      • Not participating? Expect to get pulled over. a lot
      • A few years from now, the program will be extended to indoor cameras. And again, not participating will be very, very suspicious
      • Of course, the system will be used to keep cops honest as well; you can request footage from any interaction with an officer. It just happens that the fragment you requested mysteriously disappeared from the server.

  • Worst fear (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @11:51PM (#60682198) Journal

    . Now, our worst fears have been confirmed.

    That's not my worst fear, I promise.

  • Just another episode of Cops... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @11:58PM (#60682200)

    Now, if they allowed live streaming from the cameras in their cars and badge cams, that would be interesting.

    • That will happen when the PD is forced to order the Super Duper Real-Time AI Blockchain Quantum Internet forever camera system infused with Synergy and Love, commanded by politicians who think the CD tray in their computers is the cup holder.

      Then a 12 year old will crack the system and make live streams available to the entire planet.

  • The Soviet Union could only dream about this. Imagine if they had a camera on every house, instead of relying on a school kid to turn in his parents for some extra food rations.

    • Drove through East Germany a few months after reunification to get to Berlin. The guard towers at every highway intersection were eerie.

  • I Am Glad It Is Just The Police (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @12:13AM (#60682228)

    that can do this. Any other organization would have bad actors taking advantage of the situation. O wait..

  • Worst fear? Not really. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EmoryM ( 2726097 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @01:03AM (#60682286)
    Worst fear would be the camera and participation are both mandatory, this is more like exactly what you'd expect in a free society. How do you oppose someone installing a camera on their property and sharing the feed with whoever they like? That's freedom.

  • Great! So now I can do an FOIA (state version vice federal) and request copies of all Ring camera video the police have captured. Post those on the internet and let everyone know what those 'volunteers' are doing at their house. Or at least who is coming and going thru the front door and when.

    Anybody in Mississippi that want to file to state equivalent of FOIA so they have standing to get the copies?

    Is there any notice that must be posted when the Government is getting or using a video feed?
    Doesn't that

  • This is why the GDPR is important. (Score:3)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @05:11AM (#60682618)

    in the EU, all of this is flat-out illegal.

    And I don't mean just on a dragnet investigation level, which is a crime toi.

    Worst you can do, is post warnings with precise details of who uses the data and for what, *outside* of the recorded area (so before entering it). And then you still have to have a legitimate reason. And then you can *still* be sued and lose, if it's clearly bullshit. And you have to instantly comply with any deletion requests. Yes, Amazon amd Google too.

    • Yes, it is illegal. But that does not stop any European government from breaking the law. Try walking in Rotterdam (or lots of other cities in the Netherlands) without being spied upon by surveillance cameras. You must find a very obscure place in the outskirts to be able to do so.

  • Lomg time ago I suggested that all cars be equipped with GPS and a kill switch that 1.) would stop car theft and 2.) quickly end police chases.

    The cops I talked to said, "No!" When I asked, they said it would infringe their rights as citizens.

    So, we still have cars stolen and dangerous chases.

    In this matter of streamed Ring, I guess citizens can live stream anything they want to whoever they want, but when that stream is serviced and carried on taxpayer dollars, it becomes public property and ANYONE should

  • We've already made surveillance "OK" in cities. This is just adding privacy invading cameras to areas which didn't have them before. Likely the burbs.

  • I'm in favor of a program like this so long as cutting the police in on your camera feed stays discretionary. Police malpractice is a very real problem in some jurisdictions, but if it is happening in your neighborhood then people will simply not opt for this program. In fact, membership in this program will be a valuable indicator of police trust in each neighborhood.

    I see another potential advantage: people are more likely to maintain their own security equipment than the city or state will, and will only

  • My Ring door bell camera senses motion to begin recording events within its view. The distance from the camera can be adjusted so as to hopefully not scan too far from it. In the case of Jackson, do the police have access to control this distance and perhaps a live view? If so, this might end up using a lot of data, interfering with the home owner's Internet usage. Now, if the cops pay for the subscription cost (for Ring $30/yr) as well as the cost of unlimited, high speed internet data, I might be all in,

  • In most residential areas in the US, owners are not allowed to put a privacy fence in their front yard.

    If my neighbor's Ring camera is allowed to stream my front yard, because there is no expectation of privacy, then perhaps I should be able to install a privacy fence.

  • How long before the Ring camera is "racist."

    That camera, it recorded black people being black people. OMG, this is terrible. It's harder for the criminals to lie. It's funny how some people think criminals tell the truth.

  • and I will let the cops have access to my stream.

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