> “If there is the infrastructure, if there is the channel by which police can request footage without a warrant or consent of the user, under what circumstances they get it is out of our control. I worry that because it’s decided by the police and by somebody at Ring, there will be temptation to use that for increasingly less urgent situations.”
Many people (I would argue anybody with common sense) predicted Ring would get used as a surveillance tool. This quote correctly states the nearly-inevitable next step, which will also be ignored.
So moved into a newly built house, by default everyone gets a smart doorbell in this house. They looked at me like I was crazy when I said I didn't want it or any of the other the "smart" devices.
My view on this is that we're not going back and it would be silly to try to do so. Once you have the technology to record, track, and ultimately apprehend criminals, simply not doing so in the name of ideological purity becomes increasingly obscene. What we need are courts that understand the technology, prosecutors who fear censure for overreach, and fair laws about standards of access to the data.
It's here to stay. We just need good rules around its use. The benefits are too compelling.
IMO the primary utility of Ring is for Amazon to surveil their delivery contractors, without a doorbell cam it’s trivial for a delivery person to set the package on the porch, photograph it as “proof of delivery”, and then walk away with said package.
So the deterrent effect is good for the consumer in that it prevents theft, and good for Amazon because they can contract out to just about anyone to deliver packages, no trust required (or, “trust but verify”)
This will maybe be too snide, but I want to say it: what an utterly ridiculous system we've contrived for ourselves.
People want to live in suburbs, where their residences are separated from commercial areas. This starves city and town centers, leaving only big businesses that are capable of thriving on high volume sales.
But we still want the convenience of walking down to their neighborhood store, so we've constructed an entire economic system built on shipping things in disposable boxes around the globe and getting them to people's doorsteps within two business days.
But, it turns out, this makes it really easy for someone to walk up to your door and steal your package. So we pay the same companies that starve our neighborhood businesses for the privilege of being surveilled, in turn externalizing the cost of their haphazard practices onto law enforcement and the victimized parties.
More middlemen, more theft, more surveillance, more waste. What a farce.
You're waaaaay overthinking it. Building whole system of analyzing that at scale is very costly, and totally unnecessary.
Amazon, as any other carrier, depends on the insurance (self-insurance in this case) and statistics. Some % of package theft will happen, and it's all priced in into their business cost.
For bonus points they can then point the finger at the local thieves that happily try to identify and then shadow Amazon delivery contractors and steal valuable looking parcels based on whatever gut instinct they have for value based on size/shape/weight of the packages.
Amazon proves the delivery and now it’s the local Polive Department’s problem.
They are literally selling customers an excuse they can use later against the very customer that buys it.
My next door neighbor (we share a wall) had their bicycles stolen twice, so they installed Ring (floodlight) cameras in both the backyard and the front porch. After a year, the cameras have yielded no added security, or caught any "bad guys" as far as I can tell and from what they told me.
What I realized, is they use it to keep track of their kids, funny cat videos that trigger the recording, and most importantly, as a 2 way radio to talk or listen to the kids. That last point, well, I found out they can also listen to my conversations an my kids.
I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. They confirmed they record audio and video. They asked if there was a problem. I said no problem with them. I'm not comfortable with the audio/video recording me or my friends conversations if company comes over to talk to me on my porch or driveway.
I really didn't need to tell them anything, it's self evident why someone wants a camera point away. Needless to say, after I asked them in the winter, one of them refuses to speak to me and crosses the street and avoids me.
These people use surveillance to supervise their kids, and don't care about the fact that their neighbors (me) could be recorded, and they could be hacked or footage access by random people, because Amazon isn't exactly the king of privacy.
I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. It's a shame though they are everywhere, with disregard for privacy right on people's property. So yes, I'm biased. I have no love for Ring.
I live in a block-long grouping of condos in Brooklyn. Every so often the management company sends out exterminators and one day as I was talking to him he pointed to these environmental monitors installed on a lamppost on our block. He says “what’s with that, the government spying on us?” and I explained it’s just some environmental data collectors, but pointed to my neighbor’s Ring and mentioned “although that thing records me every time I enter or leave my condo”. He said “oh, I have one of those, it’s great”. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with the fact that Amazon was sharing the videos with law enforcement without consent. The cognitive dissonance was maddening but not at all surprising.
The camera may be acting as a deterrent (if they didn't have any additional thefts) without it being obvious.
I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property- just into windows and other semi-private locations.
That includes both audio and video. I ascribe to the "it's legal for journalists to go through your trash, so if you want privacy, shred your trash first" philosophy.
I added a new camera that includes the school across the street and if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it (they asked for a breakin across the street, but my camera wasn't pointed there).
One important details is that I buy fairly generic cameras that aren't talking to the outside world/cloud services although it's still a risk.
On one hand, it bothers me that I can't walk around the block without ending up on a dozen security cameras because everybody has a video doorbell. You can modify the motion and privacy zones to exclude certain areas such as the sidewalk, but I'm willing to bet most people do not do this.
On the other hand, I've personally had success with the police and court systems based on video evidence I could provide from my doorbell camera. Also, previously I had a long-lasting issue with a neighbor at my old house who would get really nasty about my yard and other issues (I suspected old age and mental issues) that completely ended once I put up a security camera to record the area he was doing this from.
If I do end up ever getting more security cameras, my plan is to show my neighbors exactly what angle they're recording and make sure they're OK with it. While I technically have the right to record whatever I want to in my state, I'd rather not make anyone feel uncomfortable. I recently came across a video where someone ended up pointing IR lasers at their neighbor's cameras and it was an effective way to disable the cameras without breaking any laws [1]
Def sounds like shitty behaviour from your neighbours.
In terms of decreasing crime I live in Oakland in a duplex. Downstairs was empty and crooks broke in and stole a bunch of stuff over several hours earlier this year. We only had a camera doorbell for our upstairs unit and I have footage of one of the crooks walking around the corner with a crowbar, seeing the camera and immediately turning around and walking away. The camera was a huge deterrent for them and I believe the only reason our upstairs didn't get broken into where we were fast asleep.
We now have cameras on every door + a floodlight in the backyard.
I am also no fan of Ring or similar, though the reasons are slightly different. We lost our cat recently, and I went round my neighbourhood knocking/ringing on every door to ask around.
It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered.
I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I don't agree that everyone should be treated with suspicion by default.
If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.
I've wrote about it before on HN, but a local busybody saw me committing the crime of walking down the street in my own neighborhood on their Ring camera and used that as pretext for calling the cops on me, who then harassed me for being "suspicious" without having actually looked at the footage themselves at all.
Unsurprisingly, I am not a fan of the surveillance state that's found itself at my literal doorstep.
There are multiple homes near me that just point cameras straight out into the street, recording everyone else's comings and goings. This seems deeply anti-social to me, not much different from spying on the neighbors with binoculars. Meanwhile, police in San Francisco now propose that they should have realtime access to private networked surveillance systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077528
I don't mind people in my neighborhood running security cameras as long as they store the footage locally. I can't consent to the terms that a managed service provider presents them with respect to footage I am in or conversations I have. I am concerned that given a sizeable enough populace with locally stored footage, that it could become the target of robo-warrants for proxy-surveillance, but we're a bit off from that.
The reason I support people running their own security cameras is because I recently had a woman go off on some wild diatribe about how my property looked (which actually belongs to my landlord) and she became very upset to the point of trying to force my front gate open as I shut it. Since then she's gone on some proxy wars with other people in the neighborhood. Obviously her behavior will continue to escalate and because I have no cameras I have no way to show she was willing to use force and intimidation from step 1.
Depending where you live this might be illegal. In the U.K. you have an obligation not to record your neighbour’s property, and not to record conversations of members of the public.
I think you can set up a video camera pretty much anywhere you want, but there are a lot of laws about audio recording. I would check on your state's laws. I don't even think this would be covered by 1-party consent.
This is one of the perennial tug-of-wars in the general principle "Your rights end where my nose begins."
If you're emitting pressure waves or reflecting radiation flux and it crosses into my property, am I allowed to record and analyze it? And both the law and morality basically say "kinda, maybe, I dunno, depends." To wit: it's generally considered gauche to take photographs of you doing harmless things in your backyard, but if you're building a meth lab back there, you can be certain a neighbor will take photos and submit them as evidence. But how do they know it's a meth lab without looking in the first place?
The rights and responsibilities around data storage and analysis are context-specific and complicated.
> I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit.
My sister has cameras on the outside of our house. When neighbors asked her to point them away from their houses, my sister also lost her shit. Even when the police came by, she got so upset that the police re-aimed her cameras when they got her distracted.
For some reason people who get involved in shootings try to hide their guns in our neighborhood (there are some unique cars and unique landscaping in this neighborhood). Her cameras have resulted in the police recovering about a dozen guns during 2021 and several arrests when the perps come by a few hours later to pick them up.
I fear for the day when someone comes knocking on my door because my government-approved surveillance doorbell has been offline for too long.
The very first thing I did when I moved into my new house was completely disconnect/disable all networked security & "smart" home systems. I have a Ring doorbell, but it is not receiving any power. I figure the simple sight of it may still serve as a deterrent.
Most of the "smart" home things I permit today utilize bimetallic strips for their decision making.
I worry less about the police than I do about Amazon having this surveillance in the first place. The former head of the NSA sits on the board of directors and they have multi billion dollar contracts for services to the intelligence agencies.
Please if you want to surveil your property and people nearby, choose devices that capture it locally or to your private cloud. You can then choose to hand it over to police when warranted.
>I worry less about the police than I do about Amazon having this surveillance in the first place. The former head of the NSA sits on the board of directors and they have multi billion dollar contracts for services to the intelligence agencies.
That's just being worried about the police with extra steps. An F15 doesn't stand on a street corner and a surveillance dragnet doesn't kick in your door.
Does any one know of a privacy focused security camera?
I live in a rough neighborhood and am concerned about theft, but I have 0 faith or trust in companies like amazon.
If I want a security camera that I can check remotely, but I want to own my data and have complete privacy (no snooping by the company, no ability for them to give my data to some one else).
Do I have any options for this other than completely rolling my own?
What I would like to see is for the police to actually track down crime when people give them video evidence. Here's a video of someone stealing a car, stealing a bicycle, breaking into a house. Go arrest them! Instead, the police just ignore reports like this.
I think it would be fair to do something like, if you are convicted of a crime, the police keep your face and other biometric data on file for the next five years. Then if you get caught on video committing another crime, they can just use face detection to know it's you.
The way it works now, the power dynamics are all wrong. It shouldn't be Amazon listening to the police who ignore the people, it should be the police listening to the people, and Amazon just sells people a data service.
Agreed. I've found the last group that gets access to invasive surveillance data is the local police.
For a while, Google was offering reverse GPS lookups of phones to the police. ("List all phones in this bounding box at this time in the past"). If you had Google Maps installed on your phone, then you were automatically opted in to sharing the data.
(I think this may be illegal in some US jurisdictions now; though Biden is talking about specific carve outs preventing sharing of GPS traces near abortion clinics with state governments, so who knows...)
Someone broke into a remote building at 2AM. We had video of them doing it with a precise start / stop timestamp for the event, and of no one else in the area. The police said they couldn't ask Google to query the database for them.
So, we're in a situation where the data exists on everyone, but only abusive law enforcement types and creepy marketers are willing to use it.
We can't even really have an argument about the tradeoffs between privacy and security, since the data isn't available for the benefit of normal victims of normal crimes.
I get that privacy vs law and order issues get people worked up because they probe at a difference in values. And perhaps in many contexts reasonable people can take different abstract positions.
But with Ring etc, I think society gets a really poor law and order benefit in exchange for the privacy cost. We should at least be demanding that if our privacy is invaded we get something out of it.
I live in a dense city where minor property crimes are notoriously common. Last year, after multiple package thefts, one neighbor bought a blink camera for the building entrance. It recorded every time me or my neighbors entered or exited, and it recorded when later my neighbor had yet more packages stolen (thieves easily got through a locked gate and front door). But what do you do then? The cops aren't going to do anything with a video of a guy in a hoodie stealing $200 worth of goods. That stuff is never going to be recovered. Nextdoor in our area has tons of these videos. My neighbor still had to learn to be proactive and defensive. A cost in privacy was paid, but no reduction in crime was enjoyed.
Here are some proposals for potentially more equitable arrangements:
- if the police can have at-will access to our cameras, we should get at-will access to their bodycams. No more of this "10 days after a shooting, family members of the deceased were able to watch key clips of footage selected by the PD"
- if the police claim that having access to our cameras makes them more efficient in solving crimes, then let them put numbers on that efficiency so we can reduce police budgets accordingly
- if the police claim that having access to our cameras makes lets them solve more crimes, then anyone coming forward with footage of a crime should be able to demand that the police make a credible effort to investigate. Oh, not enough resources? My city is in the top 10 in per-capita police spending in the US, and I see _so many_ cops doing absolutely nothing all the time. If I'm going to live in a creepy surveillance state we could at least have an industrious and effective police force.
It's often overlooked that users get happiness from privacy, and the mere risk of a breach (however small) makes risk-averse people unhappy, even if a breach never eventuates.
Law enforcement might catch some more bad guys with 11 extra ring videos, but now every ring user has to worry about local police sharing/laughing/perving at their home videos - is it worth it?
It might have been well intentioned, but Amazon's decision seems dubious.
> It's often overlooked that users get happiness from privacy
That's not true though, at all. Users prefer convenience over privacy by far, just look at how much people still use Facebook, Google, TikTok, etc despite having terrible privacy practices. Those videos are too addicting. Being able to monitor your home is too convenient.
It blows my mind how quickly people put up home cameras with zero thought to
* (1) what gets captured
* (2) who gets what gets captured
Walk down the street of any middle-class neighborhood in a major suburb: a healthy chunk have cameras. Let's say 60%.
So, you and your family are being passively surveilled on a massive scale … for the benefit of someone who's not you preventing another someone from stealing their bike.
Is this a reasonable tradeoff? Is it fair to others?
I just saw this article[0] about how the constant scams we're subjected to on a daily basis are a big problem for more than just monetary reasons. If companies weren't allowed to collect so much data, and weren't allowed to just share with whomever they wanted to, this would be much less of a problem. Many of these scams are possible because of the huge trove of personal information collected by companies like Amazon, Google, etc. Whether they lose control of their data to hackers or sell it to untrustworthy "partners" doesn't really matter. If they didn't have it, they couldn't sell it or lose it.
I'll change my tune when news like this breaks about Apple, but I paid extra for a HomeKit video camera because Amazon's data policies give me heebie-jeebies.
I get a notification and a live video on my TV when someone shows up on my doorstep, but not when someone walks by on the sidewalk. It's easy.
> Although Ring publicizes its policy of handing over camera footage only if the owner agrees — or if judge signs a search warrant — the company says it also reserves the right to supply police with footage in “emergencies,” defined broadly as “cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.”
(…)
> it has provided police with user footage 11 times this year alone.
I would actually be okay with this if it was more public when the standard was met. For example, there’s an armed shooter at the local elementary school in front of my house? Sure, scoop up my Ring footage.
But without more info I have to assume it’s whenever the police say it’s an emergency, which can be anytime they want.
To be fair, consent is given by these corporations constantly over any allegation so whether with or without consent you can safely assume these corporations are not on your side.
For me, I try not to get caught up in the day to day arguments of it all and just donate to organizations like the EFF.
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
Many people (I would argue anybody with common sense) predicted Ring would get used as a surveillance tool. This quote correctly states the nearly-inevitable next step, which will also be ignored.
[+] [-] buscoquadnary|3 years ago|reply
This was the exact reason.
[+] [-] dionidium|3 years ago|reply
It's here to stay. We just need good rules around its use. The benefits are too compelling.
[+] [-] mhaymo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zionic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jazzyjackson|3 years ago|reply
So the deterrent effect is good for the consumer in that it prevents theft, and good for Amazon because they can contract out to just about anyone to deliver packages, no trust required (or, “trust but verify”)
[+] [-] woodruffw|3 years ago|reply
People want to live in suburbs, where their residences are separated from commercial areas. This starves city and town centers, leaving only big businesses that are capable of thriving on high volume sales.
But we still want the convenience of walking down to their neighborhood store, so we've constructed an entire economic system built on shipping things in disposable boxes around the globe and getting them to people's doorsteps within two business days.
But, it turns out, this makes it really easy for someone to walk up to your door and steal your package. So we pay the same companies that starve our neighborhood businesses for the privilege of being surveilled, in turn externalizing the cost of their haphazard practices onto law enforcement and the victimized parties.
More middlemen, more theft, more surveillance, more waste. What a farce.
[+] [-] justapassenger|3 years ago|reply
Amazon, as any other carrier, depends on the insurance (self-insurance in this case) and statistics. Some % of package theft will happen, and it's all priced in into their business cost.
[+] [-] techdragon|3 years ago|reply
Amazon proves the delivery and now it’s the local Polive Department’s problem.
They are literally selling customers an excuse they can use later against the very customer that buys it.
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
They do seem common, but not that ubiquitous, yet.
My parents have a Ring camera, my sister has a Nest, and I have DIY raspberry pi cameras. My parents immediate neighbors have none.
[+] [-] unfocused|3 years ago|reply
What I realized, is they use it to keep track of their kids, funny cat videos that trigger the recording, and most importantly, as a 2 way radio to talk or listen to the kids. That last point, well, I found out they can also listen to my conversations an my kids.
I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. They confirmed they record audio and video. They asked if there was a problem. I said no problem with them. I'm not comfortable with the audio/video recording me or my friends conversations if company comes over to talk to me on my porch or driveway.
I really didn't need to tell them anything, it's self evident why someone wants a camera point away. Needless to say, after I asked them in the winter, one of them refuses to speak to me and crosses the street and avoids me.
These people use surveillance to supervise their kids, and don't care about the fact that their neighbors (me) could be recorded, and they could be hacked or footage access by random people, because Amazon isn't exactly the king of privacy.
I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. It's a shame though they are everywhere, with disregard for privacy right on people's property. So yes, I'm biased. I have no love for Ring.
[+] [-] mtalantikite|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dekhn|3 years ago|reply
I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property- just into windows and other semi-private locations. That includes both audio and video. I ascribe to the "it's legal for journalists to go through your trash, so if you want privacy, shred your trash first" philosophy.
I added a new camera that includes the school across the street and if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it (they asked for a breakin across the street, but my camera wasn't pointed there).
One important details is that I buy fairly generic cameras that aren't talking to the outside world/cloud services although it's still a risk.
[+] [-] treesknees|3 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I've personally had success with the police and court systems based on video evidence I could provide from my doorbell camera. Also, previously I had a long-lasting issue with a neighbor at my old house who would get really nasty about my yard and other issues (I suspected old age and mental issues) that completely ended once I put up a security camera to record the area he was doing this from.
If I do end up ever getting more security cameras, my plan is to show my neighbors exactly what angle they're recording and make sure they're OK with it. While I technically have the right to record whatever I want to in my state, I'd rather not make anyone feel uncomfortable. I recently came across a video where someone ended up pointing IR lasers at their neighbor's cameras and it was an effective way to disable the cameras without breaking any laws [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyYm2UwAaeQ
[+] [-] nedwin|3 years ago|reply
In terms of decreasing crime I live in Oakland in a duplex. Downstairs was empty and crooks broke in and stole a bunch of stuff over several hours earlier this year. We only had a camera doorbell for our upstairs unit and I have footage of one of the crooks walking around the corner with a crowbar, seeing the camera and immediately turning around and walking away. The camera was a huge deterrent for them and I believe the only reason our upstairs didn't get broken into where we were fast asleep.
We now have cameras on every door + a floodlight in the backyard.
[+] [-] dm319|3 years ago|reply
It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered.
I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I don't agree that everyone should be treated with suspicion by default.
[+] [-] MichaelZuo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkxijlewlf|3 years ago|reply
Friend: Have you any success bringing your neighbors on board.
Me: There's been a setback. They're currently not speaking with me.
Friend: That is unfortunate. We're talking a lot of money.
Me: I know. I'll fix it.
Friend: You better.
[+] [-] heavyset_go|3 years ago|reply
Unsurprisingly, I am not a fan of the surveillance state that's found itself at my literal doorstep.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kodah|3 years ago|reply
The reason I support people running their own security cameras is because I recently had a woman go off on some wild diatribe about how my property looked (which actually belongs to my landlord) and she became very upset to the point of trying to force my front gate open as I shut it. Since then she's gone on some proxy wars with other people in the neighborhood. Obviously her behavior will continue to escalate and because I have no cameras I have no way to show she was willing to use force and intimidation from step 1.
[+] [-] wittyusername|3 years ago|reply
https://www.tinytxs.com/products/ultrasonic-jammer
[+] [-] _benedict|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisBob|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shadowgovt|3 years ago|reply
If you're emitting pressure waves or reflecting radiation flux and it crosses into my property, am I allowed to record and analyze it? And both the law and morality basically say "kinda, maybe, I dunno, depends." To wit: it's generally considered gauche to take photographs of you doing harmless things in your backyard, but if you're building a meth lab back there, you can be certain a neighbor will take photos and submit them as evidence. But how do they know it's a meth lab without looking in the first place?
The rights and responsibilities around data storage and analysis are context-specific and complicated.
[+] [-] Tangurena4|3 years ago|reply
My sister has cameras on the outside of our house. When neighbors asked her to point them away from their houses, my sister also lost her shit. Even when the police came by, she got so upset that the police re-aimed her cameras when they got her distracted.
For some reason people who get involved in shootings try to hide their guns in our neighborhood (there are some unique cars and unique landscaping in this neighborhood). Her cameras have resulted in the police recovering about a dozen guns during 2021 and several arrests when the perps come by a few hours later to pick them up.
[+] [-] odysseus|3 years ago|reply
* Getting a partial face/partial vehicle ID of someone who stole our package
* Seeing the sneaky method in which they stole the package (allowing me to talk to neighbors warning them about the method used)
* Getting a private instant announcement of who exactly is at the door (if they've been here before and they're in my contacts)
* Notifying us while on vacation that someone out of the ordinary is at the door (and being able to speak to them as if we were home)
* Deterring raccoons (bright light on the front of the camera)
Not-so-useful things:
* Seeing the large number of cars that like to use our driveway to make a U-turn
There is an option to turn off audio recording and all footage is encrypted.
[+] [-] bob1029|3 years ago|reply
The very first thing I did when I moved into my new house was completely disconnect/disable all networked security & "smart" home systems. I have a Ring doorbell, but it is not receiving any power. I figure the simple sight of it may still serve as a deterrent.
Most of the "smart" home things I permit today utilize bimetallic strips for their decision making.
[+] [-] kornhole|3 years ago|reply
Please if you want to surveil your property and people nearby, choose devices that capture it locally or to your private cloud. You can then choose to hand it over to police when warranted.
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|3 years ago|reply
That's just being worried about the police with extra steps. An F15 doesn't stand on a street corner and a surveillance dragnet doesn't kick in your door.
[+] [-] RosanaAnaDana|3 years ago|reply
I live in a rough neighborhood and am concerned about theft, but I have 0 faith or trust in companies like amazon.
If I want a security camera that I can check remotely, but I want to own my data and have complete privacy (no snooping by the company, no ability for them to give my data to some one else).
Do I have any options for this other than completely rolling my own?
[+] [-] lacker|3 years ago|reply
I think it would be fair to do something like, if you are convicted of a crime, the police keep your face and other biometric data on file for the next five years. Then if you get caught on video committing another crime, they can just use face detection to know it's you.
The way it works now, the power dynamics are all wrong. It shouldn't be Amazon listening to the police who ignore the people, it should be the police listening to the people, and Amazon just sells people a data service.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hedora|3 years ago|reply
For a while, Google was offering reverse GPS lookups of phones to the police. ("List all phones in this bounding box at this time in the past"). If you had Google Maps installed on your phone, then you were automatically opted in to sharing the data.
(I think this may be illegal in some US jurisdictions now; though Biden is talking about specific carve outs preventing sharing of GPS traces near abortion clinics with state governments, so who knows...)
Someone broke into a remote building at 2AM. We had video of them doing it with a precise start / stop timestamp for the event, and of no one else in the area. The police said they couldn't ask Google to query the database for them.
So, we're in a situation where the data exists on everyone, but only abusive law enforcement types and creepy marketers are willing to use it.
We can't even really have an argument about the tradeoffs between privacy and security, since the data isn't available for the benefit of normal victims of normal crimes.
[+] [-] abeppu|3 years ago|reply
But with Ring etc, I think society gets a really poor law and order benefit in exchange for the privacy cost. We should at least be demanding that if our privacy is invaded we get something out of it.
I live in a dense city where minor property crimes are notoriously common. Last year, after multiple package thefts, one neighbor bought a blink camera for the building entrance. It recorded every time me or my neighbors entered or exited, and it recorded when later my neighbor had yet more packages stolen (thieves easily got through a locked gate and front door). But what do you do then? The cops aren't going to do anything with a video of a guy in a hoodie stealing $200 worth of goods. That stuff is never going to be recovered. Nextdoor in our area has tons of these videos. My neighbor still had to learn to be proactive and defensive. A cost in privacy was paid, but no reduction in crime was enjoyed.
Here are some proposals for potentially more equitable arrangements:
- if the police can have at-will access to our cameras, we should get at-will access to their bodycams. No more of this "10 days after a shooting, family members of the deceased were able to watch key clips of footage selected by the PD"
- if the police claim that having access to our cameras makes them more efficient in solving crimes, then let them put numbers on that efficiency so we can reduce police budgets accordingly
- if the police claim that having access to our cameras makes lets them solve more crimes, then anyone coming forward with footage of a crime should be able to demand that the police make a credible effort to investigate. Oh, not enough resources? My city is in the top 10 in per-capita police spending in the US, and I see _so many_ cops doing absolutely nothing all the time. If I'm going to live in a creepy surveillance state we could at least have an industrious and effective police force.
[+] [-] asojfdowgh|3 years ago|reply
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/31/22258856/amazon-ring-part...
Its not an accident, its the entire reason why they make the doorbells
[+] [-] nomilk|3 years ago|reply
Law enforcement might catch some more bad guys with 11 extra ring videos, but now every ring user has to worry about local police sharing/laughing/perving at their home videos - is it worth it?
It might have been well intentioned, but Amazon's decision seems dubious.
[+] [-] phailhaus|3 years ago|reply
That's not true though, at all. Users prefer convenience over privacy by far, just look at how much people still use Facebook, Google, TikTok, etc despite having terrible privacy practices. Those videos are too addicting. Being able to monitor your home is too convenient.
[+] [-] fundad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eth0up|3 years ago|reply
https://motion-project.github.io/
[+] [-] Pakdef|3 years ago|reply
I run a script on_event_end to make a backup on my VPS and also, on_event_start, I record audio:
on_event_start ffmpeg -nostdin -f alsa -i pulse -c:a libmp3lame -ar 44100 -b:a 128k -ac 1 -f mp3 /home/user/motion/%Y%m%d%H%M%S.mp3 &
I just wish they would have chosen a different name, it can be hard to find in a web search.
[+] [-] gffrd|3 years ago|reply
* (1) what gets captured
* (2) who gets what gets captured
Walk down the street of any middle-class neighborhood in a major suburb: a healthy chunk have cameras. Let's say 60%.
So, you and your family are being passively surveilled on a massive scale … for the benefit of someone who's not you preventing another someone from stealing their bike.
Is this a reasonable tradeoff? Is it fair to others?
[+] [-] thewebcount|3 years ago|reply
[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/13/scam-fr...
[+] [-] MengerSponge|3 years ago|reply
I get a notification and a live video on my TV when someone shows up on my doorstep, but not when someone walks by on the sidewalk. It's easy.
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ascendantlogic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helen___keller|3 years ago|reply
> Although Ring publicizes its policy of handing over camera footage only if the owner agrees — or if judge signs a search warrant — the company says it also reserves the right to supply police with footage in “emergencies,” defined broadly as “cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.”
(…)
> it has provided police with user footage 11 times this year alone.
I would actually be okay with this if it was more public when the standard was met. For example, there’s an armed shooter at the local elementary school in front of my house? Sure, scoop up my Ring footage.
But without more info I have to assume it’s whenever the police say it’s an emergency, which can be anytime they want.
[+] [-] dikaio|3 years ago|reply
For me, I try not to get caught up in the day to day arguments of it all and just donate to organizations like the EFF.
[+] [-] robg|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salawat|3 years ago|reply