For 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.
Well, 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.
If you ever interact with law enforcement in a non-friendly way, even something like being depressed and someone doing a invoking a wellness check, or getting SWATted, you'll know very very quickly how invasive cops are, and how they give themselves uninvited access to everything in your apartment, smartphone and anything else they find. Doesn't matter if six months later it's admissible or not to court, the damage would have already been done, if not legally, then mentally and psychologically on you.
The "I have nothing to hide" is similar to the "I don't need a gun" or "I don't need a car" that people living in big safe cities with plenty of police/transit say, ignoring the fact that the other half of the country is living in areas with nearby forests/wild animals and less law enforcement and plenty of crime and everything is far apart. Plenty of people out there have issues in their lives and they do need the privacy to keep themselves sane.
considering 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.
Taking 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.
I 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.
Great. 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.
> 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
In 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.
What 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.
I 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'.
With "normal" CCTV you control the data. If the police want it, they are very welcome to obtain a warranty and I'll be more than happy to give them copies of everything. No problem at all.
But with something like Ring, you don't control the data. Police will have special arrangements where they can view recordings whenever they like, sometimes without a warrant, based on "suspicion" or some other nonsense like that. I'm also guessing that Ring doesn't tell you when this happens. That is a system prone to abuse.
As to your last point - of course you should be able to volunteer the data if you want to. That was never in question.
If 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.
I 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.
Awesome. 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.
We need to give the police additional powers? These unelected people appear to have more power than our elected official already. Steeply and swiftly reducing their power sounds way more appropriate.
I always find it funny how there's a mainstream political opinion in the US that strongly distrusts the government AND wants the police to have unlimited unencumbered power without any oversight.
[+] [-] heavyset_go|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-ring-wants-police-to-keep-t...
[2] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/8/20903536/amazon-ring-do...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24586362
[+] [-] schwartzworld|5 years ago|reply
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-97-porch-pirate-p...
[+] [-] dschuetz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn_master|5 years ago|reply
The "I have nothing to hide" is similar to the "I don't need a gun" or "I don't need a car" that people living in big safe cities with plenty of police/transit say, ignoring the fact that the other half of the country is living in areas with nearby forests/wild animals and less law enforcement and plenty of crime and everything is far apart. Plenty of people out there have issues in their lives and they do need the privacy to keep themselves sane.
[+] [-] account-5|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] op03|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mashimo|5 years ago|reply
Thankfully I live in a country where you can't easily point a camera on someone else property or public space.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Kephael|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] treesknees|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] manirelli|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] iaHN|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doorty|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|5 years ago|reply
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|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] GoOnThenDoTell|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcor84|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wetpaws|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ummonk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skocznymroczny|5 years ago|reply
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'.
[+] [-] gambiting|5 years ago|reply
But with something like Ring, you don't control the data. Police will have special arrangements where they can view recordings whenever they like, sometimes without a warrant, based on "suspicion" or some other nonsense like that. I'm also guessing that Ring doesn't tell you when this happens. That is a system prone to abuse.
As to your last point - of course you should be able to volunteer the data if you want to. That was never in question.
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
The two big concerns are (a) use of footage against things that aren't actually crimes and (b) highly selective enforcement.
[+] [-] Mashimo|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kats|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whateveracct|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markawesome|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kristopolous|5 years ago|reply
I always find it funny how there's a mainstream political opinion in the US that strongly distrusts the government AND wants the police to have unlimited unencumbered power without any oversight.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gregoryl|5 years ago|reply