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Amazon’s Ring now reportedly partners with 2k US police and fire departments
- markawesome 6y agoThis is because as with any SaaS solution you are the product. Ring is a cloud camera service. If you don't want government getting access, then setup a media server and encrypt it.
- op03 6y agoI regularly inject UFOs landing into my shared Ring camera feed. Can't wait to see if Mulder show up.
- donw 6y agoWhat happens if you get a couple of guys wearing blue gloves instead?
- craftinator 6y agoAsk if they're hiring?
- doorty 6y agoGreat. You can share your security footage with your neighbors on Ring, but when I see footage in my neighborhood I always hope local law enforcement is also informed.
- throwawaysea 6y agoAwesome. We need to equip police and fire departments with tools to catch criminals and enforce the law. It also requires government cooperation so that perpetrators are prosecuted and face actual consequences, but having footage available is way better than expecting best good to randomly chance upon a suspect.
- gregoryl 6y agoI assume you're not in a minority regularly persecuted by the police?
- azinman2 6y agoPresumably this is to catch recorded crime, versus pestering random people out of the blue?
- nitrogen 6y agoThe people who stole my old startup's hardware prototypes and thousands of dollars of electronics from a storage unit were recorded. Didn't help.
- aero-glide2 6y agoIsn't this opt-in though? i.e you can choose not to share
- midasuni 6y agoYour neighbour who has “nothing to hide” opts in. Their camera points directly at your property (after all you’re dodgy - come and go at all times of night, “don’t fit in” (nothing to do with black skin), etc.
- ryan_j_naughton 6y agoTotally valid point but I'm also conflicted here. I live in Washington DC where crime definitely happens (there was a double shooting 150 feet from my house 3 weeks ago). I have cameras installed so I can monitor my house along with an alarm system. My cameras are angled so as to preserve my privacy (e.g. no cameras inside the house) although they do capture anytime someone enters or leaves my house. My backyard camera captures several other people's front porches and I've thought about that as I have no interest in capturing their front porch and monitoring them. I have drawn my polygons for the event captures to only trigger if some one enters my yard. That being said, the city of DC has a program where if you register your camera with them so they know where they are and you have 2 days of 24/7 recording history, then they will reimburse cameras up to $500 total. [1] I just signed up for that rebate program as $500 is $500. Free money. And honestly if my camera would have been setup and registered with them prior that that shooting earlier this month, I would have happily given them that footage to aid their investigation. But again, I have no interest in spying on my neighbors. So how could this be resolved so this data doesn't proliferate in usage by the police for minor crimes but is still available for serious crimes. If someone breaks into my house, I definitely want their face to be on camera. [1] https://ovsjg.dc.gov/page/private-security-camera-rebate-program https://ovsjg.dc.gov/page/private-security-camera-rebate-pro...
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y agoIs it opt-in for end users?
- dschuetz 6y agoWell, that I call a literal foot in the door. I am waiting for the "I have nothing to hide" folks to call for "privacy and personal space is sacred" when people are going to start to incriminate themselves with domestic abuse/violence or tax evasion, etc. Internet-connected "smart homes" are beyond stupid.
- account-5 6y agoI have no problems with the police doing their jobs, and were I the police I'd be definitely looking for these devices to aid an investigation. What I don't like or want is these multinational, but US based, companies spying in my home. And I don't want my neighbours doing the same. Were I to have cameras installed they would not be from an internet ad network. Beyond stupid is correct!
- arthur_sav 6y agoPeople can just NOT buy these things. We vote with our money, if we keep buying then they will keep invading our privacy.
- rat9988 6y agoWhy should we only vote with out money. We have other means to vote why are they vilified?
- heavyset_go 6y agoFor some background information, "Amazon's Ring wants police to keep these surveillance details from you"[1] and "Activists are pressuring lawmakers to stop Amazon Ring’s police surveillance partnerships"[2][3] explore the consequences of Amazon's law enforcement partnerships. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-ring-wants-police-to-keep-these-surveillance-details-from-you/ https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-ring-wants-police-to-keep-t... [2] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/8/20903536/amazon-ring-doorbell-civil-rights-police-partnerships https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/8/20903536/amazon-ring-do... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24586362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24586362
- schwartzworld 6y agoFor those who like podcasts, Citations Needed did a great episode on the topic. https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-97-porch-pirate-panic-and-the-paranoid-racism-of-snitch-apps https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-97-porch-pirate-p...
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoconsidering the ever mounting respect and trust that American policing has earned over the last decade you can certainly see how this is a really good business decision on Amazon's part.
- Mashimo 6y ago:0 Not good. Only a matter of time until a police person misuses the system to spy on his/her Ex Thankfully I live in a country where you can't easily point a camera on someone else property or public space.
- Kephael 6y agoThere's no such place, smart cameras will be ubiquitous. They are too useful and inexpensive.
- Mashimo 6y agoNo, I mean it's against the law for privacy reasons. I can't just film random people walking past my house.
- strogonoff 6y agoWhat about dashcams and street photography?
- Mashimo 6y agoAFAIK you can take street photos, if people are not the main subject. You can't take pictures of specific people, up close. I don't know the specific of where exactly the line is. I don't know how dashcams are handles here in DK I know in Germany there was a long debate and forbidden for a long time. I think in Germany they are allowed now, but you can't just drive around and video everything, only if you are involved in a situation. I think the idea is they don't want people driving around, recording everything to be some kind of vigilante police. Even a good driver breaks some minor rule by accident at times. Edit: In DK you are not allowed to release the Dashcam footage if there is a person in focus / the main subject. And I assume recognizable. Also only on public roads. Not sure how they handle numberplates.
- gambiting 6y agoIn Germany you can have a dashcam and it can be recording all the time, but any and all video recorded by it is inadmissable in court, and you can't share it online without bluring out faces and licence plates. So it's a bit useless. You can have it if you want to record for the sake of it.
- whateveracct 6y agouh oh!
- kats 6y agoIf they publish this article it means theres no news in tech area. There's no crisis, it's good.
- ummonk 6y agoWhat are the concerns here? Obviously police should be able to get warrants and obtain relevant security camera footage for a crime, and obviously owners of security cameras should have the right to volunteer their recordings to the police or to neighbors if they wish to in the absence of a warrant.
- skocznymroczny 6y agoI think there are two concerns. First is that many people might not want to have their lives recorded by a camera to which a massive global corporation has access to. And I don't mean the people volunteering the recordings, but other houses which might be in the camera's field of view without consent. Second concern is the same, but for the authorities. Warrants are well and good, but if the access is easy, it's highly likely in time they will just drop the warrant pretense and just monitor the streams 24/7 'for our safety'.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoFor the second concern it seems like there might be a constitutional issue in the US, but who knows how courts would rule on it?
- pjc50 6y agoIf you said "should the police build an omnipresent system of surveillance cameras", people might see the problem. Somehow if a giant megacorp and lots of local concerned citizens are interposed, people lose sight of this. The two big concerns are (a) use of footage against things that aren't actually crimes and (b) highly selective enforcement.
- Mashimo 6y agoI don't know how this is implemented or monitored, but what would stop a police person from requesting data from his/hers ex neighbor? Or daughters boyfriend neighbor. The neighbor just sees "police requested footage" and says yes. I would rather see some data on how helpful this is before it get's implemented. AFAIK video surveillance is often not as helpful as people think it is. Thanks to shows like CIS. I could be wrong.
- peteretep 6y ago> which lets law enforcement ask users for footage from their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations that seems fine > 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 aaah
- LatteLazy 6y agoIn fairness, if they have enough evidence to get a court order then they should get the footage. I think its important to have a barrier to break people's privacy, but I don't want an absolute barrier, just one that stops its use on cases that matter less than people's privacy.
- Sleepytime 6y agoCourt orders aren't much of a barrier, especially when many judges effectively rubber stamp police requests.
- LatteLazy 6y agoYeah, but you at least have to go and ask, and get it and bring it back. Dumb as it sounds, making it difficult means it's only used for important cases. I'd like to see a lot more consideration. I'm not sure how we can get it though given the current climate...
- girvo 6y agoIt’s definitely not just used for important cases, and the bar to getting a warrant in a lot of jurisdictions is so low as to be nearly meaningless. Unless you and I have different interpretations of what cases are important, which is totally possible too
- LatteLazy 6y agoNo, I agree, it should be more difficult!
- treesknees 6y agoTaking walks around the neighborhood, I've stared to notice just the sheer number of these cameras. It bothers me that I end up on probably 10+ doorbell cameras, possibly showing up as an alert on someones phone. I live in a suburb where basically nothing ever happens. Sure, there's the occasional clip posted on nextdoor of a rude driver or some kids stealing a lawn ornament. But I highly doubt that the grainy unfocused video of a doorbell camera was ever pivotal in solving these crimes. I just don't understand why so many people want to record the front of their house, and pay someone like Amazon a monthly fee to do so.
- iaHN 6y agoFear is incredibly profitable.
- manirelli 6y agoI live in a decent/nice neighborhood too. For me, its about easily tracking deliveries and general security with a bonus of cool storm footage. That being said, my camera alone has stopped multiple porch pirates (one even got to the door and yelled "he's got a NAME BRAND CAMERA" and then they snapped 180 and bolted. I've also recorded gunshots when a drunken party got out of hand and helped confirm with police the exact time of the shooting. I watched a fedex driver jump my 6ft fence TWICE to deliver a package to my back door. Completely idiotic here in the south... I've captured multiple crashes as well as a hit and run at my neighbor's house from a distracted driver. I captured footage of a thief sneaking into and out of my neighbor's house as well which led to an arrest. A single one of those instances would have been worth it to me to have a camera let alone these and more. I think most people have no idea what is happening in their little neighborhood and having photographic evidence can really change your perception of the area as well as potentially provide footage/evidence (at your discretion) to the relevant authorities.