Amazon's Ring Now Reportedly Partners With More Than 2,000 US Police and Fire Departments (theverge.com) 71
All but two US states -- Montana and Wyoming -- now have police or fire departments participating in Amazon's Ring network, which lets law enforcement ask users for footage from their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations, the Financial Times reported. From a report: Figures from Ring show more than 1,189 departments joined the program in 2020 for a total of 2,014. That's up sharply from 703 departments in 2019 and just 40 in 2018. The FT reports that local law enforcement departments on the platform asked for Ring videos for a total of more than 22,335 incidents in 2020. The disclosure data from Ring also shows that law enforcement made some 1,900 requests -- such as subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders -- for footage or data from Ring cameras even after the device owner has denied the request. Amazon complied with such requests 57 percent of the time, its figures show, down from 68 percent in 2019.
He sees you when you're sleeping (Score:5, Funny)
You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I'm telling you why, Jeff Bezos is coming to town
He's making a list, He's checking it twice, He's going to find out, Who's naughty and nice, Jeff Bezos is coming to town
[Pre-Chorus]
He sees you when you're sleeping, He knows when you're awake, He knows when you've been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake
[Chorus]
You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I'm telling you why, Jeff Bezos is coming to town
He's making a list, And checking it twice, He's going to find out, Who's naughty and nice, Jeff Bezos is coming
Jeff Bezos is coming, Jeff Bezos is coming to town
Jeff Bezos is coming to town
Jeff Bezos is coming to town
Jeff Bezos is coming to town
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Somehow I read that as "Prime Wills". Now there is a new business category for Amazon. Amazon will, after your unfortunate demise, sell your will and accept recommendations, testimonials, epitaphs, and comments from your fans.
Inventors vision. (Score:2)
Much like k-cups filling oceans and landfills, I'm starting to wonder how the inventor of the Ring doorbell feels about how it's being (ab)used today.
Rather odd that even the billionaire investors on Shark Tank didn't see the blood being dumped into the water with this product.
They knew (Score:5, Informative)
These are the kind of engineering decisions made daily. You think about how a product will be used. You look at the current efficiency of things like trash disposal, and the morality of large corporations.
You know a great movie about this? Real Genius. You can't invent a laser capable of frying a human-sized object from space, sell it to the government, and only then think, "they're using this to kill people?"
Morality requires effort, including a bit of thinking about such things in advance. Same way I wouldn't sell a crackhead a rusty shotgun for ten bucks, there are some technologies I would not invent.
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These are the kind of engineering decisions made daily. You think about how a product will be used. You look at the current efficiency of things like trash disposal, and the morality of large corporations.
Sadly, it becomes rather torturous when the inventor doesn't think about these things, and they come to fruition.
"I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it" - Inventor of the Keurig, talking about his invention. (There are enough non-recyclable k-cups sold every year to circle the earth several times over.)
You know a great movie about this? Real Genius. You can't invent a laser capable of frying a human-sized object from space, sell it to the government, and only then think, "they're using this to kill people?"
Morality requires effort, including a bit of thinking about such things in advance. Same way I wouldn't sell a crackhead a rusty shotgun for ten bucks, there are some technologies I would not invent.
Agreed, and thanks for the movie reference. Great movie indeed. Speaking of torture, let me get my popcorn...
Cynical view (Score:3)
In my experience, most humans act first and rationalize later both their actions and outcomes.
If you invent something that covers the world in trash, you have a couple options:
1. Yeah I thought about that but... you know... money
2. No, I never thought about that, and now I feel terrible!
The latter allows him to keep his social status intact, where the former has him crossing the line between public image (face va
Let's get even more cynical! (Score:2)
In my view, Biden is the Boomer candidate. He's there to bring them back to the good old days of Bill Clinton, when money was easily available and they were in their 40s and still only on their fourth marriages.
"Return to normal" was a way of saying "shoot the messenger." Like him or hate him, Trump was the messenger, a Reagan/Kennedy style moderate who just wanted to get back to functional Austrian economics instead of crawling further down the ideological hole of civil rights and wokeness.
They figured tha
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In my view, Biden is the Boomer candidate. He's there to bring them back to the good old days of Bill Clinton, when money was easily available and they were in their 40s and still only on their fourth marriages.
Looking at Bill Clinton for anything other than blowjobs-from-interns advice, is rather silly. Clinton just happened to be sitting in that seat when the commercial internet came alive. President Pee Wee Herman could have been running the country with Enron's Kenneth Lay as VP, and history would still paint them as great men who brought incredible financial success.
Biden is the corrupt candidate. There literally is no other reason to choose a man suffering from dementia to run the country. Even Boomers s
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There literally is no other reason to choose a man suffering from dementia to run the country.
I thought it was actually a stutter, and beats the alternative [youtu.be]. Besides, maybe they were actually planning ahead and really voting for Kamala Harris.
Late Stage Democracy (Score:1)
Late Stage Democracy always goes this way. Having created a huge pool of dependents (soyboys, boxwines, perma-impoverished, minorities) the Left now wants to take final control, and to do that, it has to get into office a candidate who will blithely charge ahead regardless of the damage that he is doing.
All democracies go out this way. We've had our 245 years. Now things get dark for a long time.
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Biden's in office because the people of the US were given two and only two options. We got to vote, not on the candidates that we wanted, but the candidates as selected by two private organizations.
Will Biden make things any worse than Trump? Doubtful. Will he make things better than before Trump took office? Maybe.
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Much like k-cups filling oceans and landfills
Better than filling them with DivaCups.
Just a crack in the door .. (Score:4, Insightful)
All the " security " cameras .. gadgets from companies you install .. anything that gathers data can and will be used by " law " enforcement , spies you name it .. these gadgets are not worth it. Any of them , When you start to use them " oh they're so convenient " you just got hooked on Big Brother.
Stupid people crack open a door to see .. then the thief slams the door and gets in.
People using any gadget like that deserve what's coming to them.
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Stupid people crack open a door to see .. then the thief slams the door and gets in.
You think you're smart making comments like this, but weren't quite smart enough to realize that your "anti-product" example here happens to be the exact reason people buy Ring doorbells.
People using any gadget like that deserve what's coming to them.
And I guess people who don't use any gadgets like this, deserve the bad guy busting down the cracked door?
Sheesh, who needs to worry about Big Brother when this kind of logic is still legal.
Panopticon (Score:3)
This idea has been with us for a long time: if we had cameras everywhere, there would be less crime.
Also, less privacy.
Re:Just a crack in the door .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still waiting for one ... just one ... proven example where the police used Ring camera footage in an investigation without the permission of the camera owner. This is the point that the anti-camera crowd constantly dances around - homeowners willingly and happily cooperate with the police and supply Ring video to them.
I recently spoke to a police detective and asked him about the Amazon partnership with police departments, and he just laughed and said, "I don't need to bother with Amazon. People send me their Ring video all the time. I get more of it than I know what to do with."
The anti-camera crowd apparently prefers their brand of dystopia where people are constantly victimized without any way to prevent or solve crimes, as opposed to the hypothetical Orwellian dystopias they keep warning us about.
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I'm still waiting for one ... just one ... proven example where the police used Ring camera footage in an investigation without the permission of the camera owner.
From the /. summary:
The disclosure data from Ring also shows that law enforcement made some 1,900 requests -- such as subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders -- for footage or data from Ring cameras even after the device owner has denied the request. Amazon complied with such requests 57 percent of the time, its figures show, down from 68 percent in 2019.
So the Amazon disclosure indicates about one thousand times police were given Ring device footage against the stated desire of the device owner not to share it.
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The Amazon disclosure data says no such thing. Where in the Law Enforcement Information Request summary provided by Ring does it say that this information was provided over the objections of the camera owners? Please read it yourself. The Financial Times may want everyone to think that all these device owners denied those requests, but there is no
Quick phone troll (Score:2, Offtopic)
I turned my ringtone to a recording of me saying, slowly and clearly, "Alexa, play Slayer." Any time you go into someone's home, stick your phone on whatever table is nearest their Alexa gadget (monitoring station).
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No you didn't.
I don't have Alexa (Score:2)
...so you don't know.
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Even if you did, nobody would ever find out. You would have to get an ACTUAL PHONE CALL to trigger your ringtone.
That's easy (Score:2)
I get a ton of those warranty sales phone calls. I listen to them, then patiently tell them that I am a teenage basement masturbator whose worldly possessions consist of one blow-up sheep doll, one aging HP laptop with a "Linux4Ever" sticker, and a hedgehog named "Mirt."
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Why go to all that trouble - just walk over and say "alexa, play slayer" to Alexa?
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Partner? I doubt it. (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
Bad idea (Score:2)
Anal prints are also used to identify people:
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
And they may want a swab:
https://hk.appledaily.com/news... [appledaily.com]
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FSB (Score:2)
FSB is the security agency in Russia now, since Soviet Union is (poof) no more. KGB became FBI.
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FSB is the security agency in Russia now, since Soviet Union is (poof) no more. KGB became FBI.
Fascinating typo...
Democracy is the art of being two-faced (Score:1)
In public, you tell people what is "correct" according to the herd.
In private, you act as is convenient for you.
So the same people who are protesting for civil liberties, civil rights, privacy, and $23/hour minimum wage are perfectly content to let Amazon and Tencent know everything about them.
The same people who go out there and scream about racial injustice and class warfare are retreating to communities of gated condominiums.
The same people who raid the Capitol talking about populism are also hiring ille
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Democracy is still leadership by violence and thus "tyranny by the common-man and the common-man ain't nice".
Humanity acheives so little because it's fighting the same vices it had 10,000 years ago. Thinking any political system is bulletproof or self-sustaining, allows the old guard to corrupt the new leaders.
Facing the hard truths (Score:2)
You're right. I like to read the ancient Greeks, knowing that many of them were describing the previous couple thousand years of history, just to see how little everything has changed.
Humans are still trying to evolve past being merely "talking monkeys with car keys."
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Humans are still trying to evolve past being merely "talking monkeys with car keys."
Yeah, but the ancient Greeks didn't have car keys, so there's evidence of progress.
Progress (Score:1)
So you think progress is a substitute for evolution? Yes, very interesting.
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Good thing you don't live with your logic. "Hey, someone dissed me. Everybody hates me."
Wouldn't it be (Score:2)
"Hey, someone said something nice. Everybody hates me."
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As the old saying goes... (Score:2)
Two wolves and a sheep voting for what's for dinner.
I think the battlefield is about to change. Liberal democracy (democracy + civil rights + market socialism) has run its course and its economies are moribund. This means that there is a bounce coming soon.
Actual results? (Score:3)
So, did Ring actually lower crime rate?
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Can you prove that the locks on your doors lower the crime rate? If not, then by all means remove them.
Ring cameras do exactly what they're designed to do ... show you who was on your front porch (not particularly well, but that's another matter). If they didn't do that, people wouldn't buy and install them.
Re:Actual results? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you prove that the locks on your doors lower the crime rate? If not, then by all means remove them.
Ring cameras do exactly what they're designed to do ... show you who was on your front porch (not particularly well, but that's another matter). If they didn't do that, people wouldn't buy and install them.
That's a cute story. Now perhaps you could explain why the hell law enforcement wants access so bad. Does law enforcement access to Ring lower crime rate, or does it actually help create more crime through parallel construction?
Best to start looking at this problem from the angle you should be looking at it from. After all, private prisons need customers, and Greed has a quota to fill.
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Sure thing, as soon as you can explain why Ring customers are so willing to provide that access.
Go talk to a police detective and ask them about Ring cameras. The one I spoke to said he didn't even bother with the Amazon partnership. Why would he, when residents are constantly providing the video to him anyway? His opinion was that the Amazon partnership is little more than free advertising and public relations by the company.
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Why would he, when residents are constantly providing the video to him anyway?
Apparently you missed the part where Amazon provides footage even when the device owner refuses, 57% of the time... The partnership is useful when the homeowner says no.
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Now perhaps you could explain why the hell law enforcement wants access so bad.
Define "so bad" - how many departments are involved in this project, 2,000? There are 17,895 law enforcement organizations in the US [wikipedia.org], that means one out of every nine is enrolled, and the Mayberry RFD police department of two counts as one organization, just like the NYPD.
One out of nine is a low adoption rate for a free service like this, in my opinion.
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Now perhaps you could explain why the hell law enforcement wants access so bad.
Define "so bad" - how many departments are involved in this project, 2,000? There are 17,895 law enforcement organizations in the US [wikipedia.org], that means one out of every nine is enrolled, and the Mayberry RFD police department of two counts as one organization, just like the NYPD.
One out of nine is a low adoption rate for a free service like this, in my opinion.
Your own example tends to explain exactly why the adoption rate appears low. Sure, the Mayberry PD counts the same as the NYPD. The large and fundamental difference is the Mayberry PD has zero use for it, much like the majority of those 17,895 law enforcement organizations who are not engaged with Amazon.
~2000 police departments in major metro areas that justify the use of Amazon services along with abusing said services to manufacture criminals from parallel construction to feed a for-profit prison syste
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The point of the Ring camera is to deter porch pirates, and help convict those that steal from porches - oh, and let you know who is at the front door.
"Crime" is a pretty nebulous term, the real question is has the presence of a Ring camera reduced the number of packages stolen off ring-equipped porches (or, more broadly all porches, with or without a Ring doorbell), OR has it increased the conviction rate of porch pirates at Ring-equipped residences?
I suspect the answer is we don't know, but the belief tha
Ring makes it easy to invade other's privacy. (Score:4, Insightful)
My problem with Ring is they are not pointed at the resident's door who owns it, but pointing across the street at the neighbor's house. Ideally, the Ring camera would be mounted in such a way to point at the door of its owner. That, coupled with the willingness of people to give their footage to anyone that asks, means that if I live across the street, my privacy is being invaded. Now there is a recording of who visits me, when I go in and out and if I have kids and they play outside, unending footage of them.
I have cameras at my house but all of them are pointed in a way to watch my doors or back yard, not the neighbors.
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Not to mention that a Ring camera is about the most inefficient way to spy on a neighbor that one could imagine. It's only triggered by motion, and the 2 MP wide-angle image is generally useless for determining the identity of the person stealing your packages, much less capable of resolving a detailed image from across the street.
Anyone who is worried about someone's Ring camera recording
Re: Ring makes it easy to invade other's privacy. (Score:2)
Maybe your legislation needs to change so that you are allowed to setup video surveillance but it is not allowed to monitor outside your own property.
With a few exceptions like ATMs and possibly apartment doors where the privacy invasion is minimal.
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Maybe your legislation needs to change so that you are allowed to setup video surveillance but it is not allowed to monitor outside your own property.
With a few exceptions like ATMs and possibly apartment doors where the privacy invasion is minimal.
Public view is public view. As has been mentioned numberous times, there are no reasonable expectations of privacy outside the walls of your home. It's part of the cost of living in a community. Anyone who needs a greater level of privacy on their own property should consider living where the closest neighbor is a mile (or further) away.
I prefer to live in a community where concepts like Neighborhood Watch (proven to reduce crime) are encouraged, even though they promote "monitoring" beyond an individual'
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Footage from Ring and like devices could lead to identifying the porch pirate who just ripped off my Amazon package.
Fine, if you want help from my devices, ask me - if I say no, it's tough titties. Its my camera, the stored footage is mine, you don't have a right to it because someone stole a Justin Beiber CD off your porch.
It's reasonable to expect that in the very near future the next-generation will recognize smoke and flames coming from my house, and notify the fire department automatically.
That would be great - make it a user select able option on my doorbell and I'll probably turn it on, make my Ring doorbell part of the fire department, giving them access to the view off my porch without my consent, and we got a problem. That is the same as having a fireman standing on my porch watchi
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Fine, if you want help from my devices, ask me - if I say no, it's tough titties. Its my camera, the stored footage is mine, you don't have a right to it because someone stole a Justin Beiber CD off your porch.
That's your legal right. In North America, there are few (often no) legal obligations for a neighbor to report crime, assist in criminal investigations. Even calling the fire deparment is voluntary. It's mostly your choice, whether you are an eye witness or your ring camera recorded the event, to step forward and provide assistance or not..
BTW: I did not intend to implly giving anyone unfettered access to your data. Your device, it should be your choice to opt in or not. I strongly oppose any form of legislation/agreement giving any party (including Google) involuntary and/or mandartory access to your data, within the limits as currenly proscribed by law.
For consideration: we create great places to live by building positive, respectful and mutually supportive relationships between neighbors. I don't have to call the fire department if I see flames shooting from your house, or share my ring footage if your car gets vandalized, or your Best of the Village People cd gets stolen off your porch. However, if unfortunate events like those ever happen to my neighbor, I will make that phone call, or share my video recording, because it's the right thing to do.
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Public view is public view. As has been mentioned numberous times, there are no reasonable expectations of privacy outside the walls of your home. It's part of the cost of living in a community.
That may be true in the USA. In Denmark we have an expectation of some degree of privacy in public areas as well. Video surveillance of other peoples property and storing video surveillance of public areas is not allowed (which means that we don't have many cameras pointing at public areas since surveillance without storing data is not worth much). Some special permits can be given to the police to monitor public areas.
So public view is public view. But that does not mean that you have to accept extensive s
Good. (Score:2)
I can't wait until our local PD will offer them for cheap/free.
I'm happy to install surveillance cameras all around my house, they can have access 24/7.
I'd be happy if my neighbors do too, so their cameras are pointing at my place as well.
Before you come back at me for my 'disregard of privacy' maybe check the personal communication device you carry with you 24/7 with a camera, a mic, and gps first. I carry one too. I *cheerfully* trade the conveniences it offers for the "sacrifice" of my privacy.
Spam messages from local PD and FD (Score:2)
Well, not SOOO bad - oh, wait... (Score:2)
All but two US states -- Montana and Wyoming -- now have police or fire departments participating in Amazon's Ring network, which lets law enforcement ask users for footage from their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations, the Financial Times reported.
Well, that's OK - I have no problem with police/fire knowing I have a camera facing the street, and if they want to ask me for help, that's just fine. Of course, ask implies a choice, like I can choose to refuse.
Figures from Ring show more than 1,189 departments joined the program in 2020 for a total of 2,014. That's up sharply from 703 departments in 2019 and just 40 in 2018. The FT reports that local law enforcement departments on the platform asked for Ring videos for a total of more than 22,335 incidents in 2020. The disclosure data from Ring also shows that law enforcement made some 1,900 requests -- such as subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders -- for footage or data from Ring cameras even after the device owner has denied the request. Amazon complied with such requests 57 percent of the time, its figures show, down from 68 percent in 2019.
Well, that's just bullshit - if they are not going to respect my decision to refuse to share data, well that's a problem.
Now, if Ring or Law Enforcement want to subsidize/pay for my ring cameras and/or subscription/cloud service, maybe they would have a right to the data my personal device collects,
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Figures from Ring show more than 1,189 departments joined the program in 2020 for a total of 2,014. That's up sharply from 703 departments in 2019 and just 40 in 2018. The FT reports that local law enforcement departments on the platform asked for Ring videos for a total of more than 22,335 incidents in 2020. The disclosure data from Ring also shows that law enforcement made some 1,900 requests -- such as subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders -- for footage or data from Ring cameras even after the device owner has denied the request. Amazon complied with such requests 57 percent of the time, its figures show, down from 68 percent in 2019.
Well, that's just bullshit - if they are not going to respect my decision to refuse to share data, well that's a problem.
Now, if Ring or Law Enforcement want to subsidize/pay for my ring cameras and/or subscription/cloud service, maybe they would have a right to the data my personal device collects, but if the service is on my dime, no.
But what if the crime they are investigating is perpetrated by yourself? In that case they should of course not respect your decision to refuse to share data but seek a court order to get it.
Or what if your neighbor was mugged and your cam is recording the area where he was mugged. Should the court then not require you (or Amazon) to hand over the footage even though you believe your neighbor is an idiot and you don't want to help solving the case?
Will the cops pay me for my footage? (Score:2)