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Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

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Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#51

Post by [deleted] »

kentm wrote: post #40
toomuchtodo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can see the potential for abuse But that is the problem. The potential exists, and without proper governance and oversight, you don't have the ability as a citizen to walk back abuse when it begins to occur. You only have the options of submitting to continued abuse, moving to a more sane locale, or the uphill political battle of defending your rights. Authoritarianism is a slow boil, and doesn't happen overnight…

I agree with your point. To elaborate my position, once one builds an opt-in surveillance network, it only requires a shift in public policy to remove the opt-in nature. You would have to have strong confidence in the safeguards against such a thing -- mainly the court system siding with privacy, which is not a sure thing historically speaking. I would cooperate with the police to help solve an actual crime, but I ce…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#52

Post by sctb »

ggggtez wrote: post #18
happyringuser wrote: post #14

I use the Ring security system at home and own a couple of the cameras. The security "history" feature is dirt simple but very cool -- I can trivially see when I use different doors in my house. The Ring smartphone app also shows me the Neighbors view for my area, which is very similar to this product being advertised here (a feed of locations, comments, and videos posted by smart device owners and others). I think p…

Nice shill account. You make it sound like this company is the only company that sells cameras.

Could you please refresh your memory of the guidelines? They ask you not to post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#53

Post by alphabettsy »

fixermark wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can see the potential for abuse But that is the problem. The potential exists, and without proper governance and oversight, you don't have the ability as a citizen to walk back abuse when it begins to occur. You only have the options of submitting to continued abuse, moving to a more sane locale, or the uphill political battle of defending your rights. Authoritarianism is a slow boil, and doesn't happen overnight…

However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?

The only abuse scenario I’ve seen on the app so far myself is people of color continually having their images shared as suspicious while walking down the sidewalk. Maybe that says more about my area than anything, but that’s a potential problem.

That, and a lady posted a photo of a vehicle and license plate that she followed several days after a recent minor crime was associated with a vehcile of the same make and color. Not sure if it ended up being the vehicle, but this should’ve only been shared with law enforcement since it could’ve been anyone’s car that happened to be similar.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#54

Post by logfromblammo »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #20
15155 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States, your consent is not needed to film you in places with no expectation of privacy.

False. It depends on how invasive the recording was, how recognizable you are and how the recording is used (e.g. using it for advertising).

Also in the United States, you have the right to video-record anything you can see from where you are if you have the right to be present. You have the right to record any happenings on or in your dwelling and its curtilage. There is no question whatsoever that everyone has the right to mount a doorbell camera and do whatever they like with the recordings.

The only exception is that if you are not in a single-party consent state, you might not be able to record the audio. It is unlikely that a legally protected conversation would be happening in mic range of the camera, though.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#56

Post by fixermark »

alphabettsy wrote: post #53
fixermark wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse? What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?

The only abuse scenario I’ve seen on the app so far myself is people of color continually having their images shared as suspicious while walking down the sidewalk. Maybe that says more about my area than anything, but that’s a potential problem. That, and a lady posted a photo of a vehicle and license plate that she followed several days after a recent minor crime was associated with a vehcile of the same make and co…

Risk of increasing efficiency of racism is definitely a concern. On the plus side, an audit trail dataset of "suspicious person" neighborhood reports coupled with some racial-identification of the subjects in the images would be a concrete dataset to demonstrate structural racism to the (still-existant) nonbelievers in the phenomenon.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#57

Post by fromthestart »

15155 wrote: post #13
fromthestart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighbor has such a doorbell. My facial data is captured every time I come over or walk by with my dog. When was I given an opportunity to consent to this?

In the United States, your consent is not needed to film you in places with no expectation of privacy.

That my consent isn't legally necessary doesn't mean that this application of technology is ethical or good for society.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#58

Post by epicide »

fixermark wrote: post #47
epicide wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technologies aren't either/or, but the implementation, control, and regulations are. I'm all for neighborhoods policing themselves, but this isn't even close to that. I would be fine with there being additional tools that assist the individual consumer with reporting crimes or providing video evidence to police. Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue.

> Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue In what way? Who on Earth is going to set up and maintain those tools, pay for the hardware, provide service channels for the hardware, etc.? Technological sophistication is by no means uniformly distributed.

I don't take issue with them making the hardware and selling a product. I have an issue with them being so heavily involved with the police side of things.

There's a big difference between a feature that allows consumers to report a video and a feature that allows police to demand a video.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#59

Post by tossimba »

_r3e4 wrote: post #4

Here is an example of Ring partnering with a police department - Orlando - to offer discounted video surveillance IoT devices to citizens, with caveat that they can share their videos with cops to fight crime. Orlando police department was called out for civil rights violations when they partnered with Amazon's facial recognition technology. The thing about Ring is it's marketed to consumers as a cheap camera....not…

What do you mean by nothing is encrypted? Transport encryption?

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#60

Post by Someone1234 »

_r3e4 wrote: post #2

I found this dropbox link to Ring's marketing video for Police Departments to use their smart video cameras for mass surveillance. This was made before Amazon acquired them. At the end of the demo the CEO states that their facial recognition search feature will be available soon. This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China. There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving…

> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.

Those are some interesting claims. Where is this information sourced from?

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