Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 180 posts

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#71

Post by adrr »

rayvy wrote: post #22
secabeen wrote: post #7

This seems fairly reasonable, as long as they keep the commitment that officers have to request videos from camera owners. Now, in theory, the PD could subpoena videos from ring without permission, but that's a higher bar than this.

Your statement reads in a pretty funny way: > This seems fairly reasonable... > ...as long as they keep the commitment... I mean, I feel as if everything seems reasonable as long as the original commitment is kept. Thing is, the original commitment is rarely if ever kept at all. This is nothing more than a problem waiting to happen, as are most things where large bureaucracies involve themselves. Once I read that the…

If I was Amazon or any other security cam company, my biggest fear would be government using my equipment to spy on customers. Because if that ever became public, it would kill adoption. If I was Amazon, I'd be lobbying to codify protections against warrantless surveillance and mass pulls of data.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#72

Post by dsfyu404ed »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it looks like: 1. Users opt to share video clips 2. Police can't view unshared videos without requesting 3. The whole thing is opt-in I don't see an issue here. It's a technical framework around something that already exists: police going door-to-door and asking for video clips. Why not make this more efficient? I can see the potential for abuse, as it is all centralized. But I think "portal for mass surveillan…

> 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…

>moving to a more sane locale,

The last frogs out of the pot before it boils always find whatever pot they migrate to to be far too cold for their taste and insist upon turning up the burner.

Relocating only buys time. At some point you have to make a stand if the problem is to be solved. The culture that tolerates authoritarianism and paternalistic government needs to actively be stopped if we want to see it relegated to history textbooks. You can't just keep moving away from it.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#73

Post by toomuchtodo »

fixermark wrote: post #49
toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur? Abuse by police for non-official business (stalking). Targeting of individual citizens and their daily activities because they attempt to hold public officials accountable. Constant surveillance of the wrong individuals. All off the top of my head from events that have occurred ("ripped from the headlines"). I could go on, but only because I take t…

Is that tradeoff worth seeing many, many fewer Amazon packages stolen wholesale from front porches? ... if you ask around, you may find the average neighborhood resident's answer is "yes." Especially if one finds the average neighborhood citizen isn't living under a corrupt police hierarchy, but instead an underfunded / understaffed one.

If you're willing to trade your privacy and security for reduced Amazon package theft, I'm unable to reason with you as my neighbor.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#74

Post by maxxxxx »

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.

I think this is an area where the constitution needs an update to reflect current technology. With the possibility of entities doing complete surveillance of the whole public space we need to refine the concept of privacy. I don't think it's acceptable that the only place where people are protected from surveillance and have privacy is their home.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#75

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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…

>Now, police are free to choose not to arrest people for committing this crime. And prosecutors are free to choose not to prosecute people who break the law in this way.

We have many decades of data indicating that relying on police discretion breeds corruption and unfair treatment of marginalized groups (i.e minorities).

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#76

Post by jellicle »

I see a lot of comments about how this is "opt-in". By definition, all of the videos that officers can see the existence of through this portal exist on Ring's servers, not on some individually-owned machine.

So if you decline to "share" your video with the police, they can just request it from Ring, who won't and can't decline to share. You won't be notified.

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#78

Post by joering2 »

_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.

Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#79

Post by maxxxxx »

tossimba wrote: post #64
ncallaway wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically true, this doctrine came from a time when cameras were far less common than they are today (by orders of magnitude), and when facial recognition software didn't even exist as a concept (outside of science fiction). Given those two very significant changes, it's probably worth re-evaluating the doctrine itself.

snip

What an extreme comment. We need to reevaluate the concept of privacy. What does that have to do with freedom of press, guns or Venezuela?

Re: Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance

#80

Post by happyringuser »

openasocket wrote: post #61
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…

What jurisdiction is this? Generally two-party consent laws have an explicit exemption for places where you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and exemptions for recording on your own private property. There can also be different standards depending on whether you are taking the pictures for commercial use or not. I'm curious what jurisdiction has a blanket ban on audio recordings without consent, no exc…

This is MA. Unlike nearly everywhere in the US, the state does not have the common-sense exemptions for "you should have known you were being recorded because [you were on a public street|you should have seen the sticker on my window]". See Commonwealth v. Jackson, 370 Mass. 502 (1976), saying that the MGL 272 sec 99 prohibition on "secret" recording is so broad that it is possible to "secretly" record someone even if they do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

While the law is rarely enforced, it is quite strict. Areas which have been explored recently involve whether or not it's okay to record the police, including a case of someone who argued she should have been allowed to secretly record her own arrest. Whether or not you're allowed to record strangers on the street without their consent has not been explicitly tested in this way, but I would rather not be a test case.

(One local nonprofit, MassLandlords, has thought about this issue a bit and decided to recommend avoiding security cameras with always-on audio for this reason - https://masslandlords.net/beware-of-cameras-that-record-audi... . The general consensus is that local law is full of untested areas which seem awfully broad; see e.g. https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/06/massachusett... ; but I don't want to be the one to help clarify the boundaries.)

Post reply on HN