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Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

theintercept.com

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Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#121

Post by duxup »

unfocused wrote: post #31

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, a…

Can confirm I use them to watch my kids. I don't think they provide any security / can't imagine they would.

Having said that the cameras only trigger recording action that happens on my property. Other places might appear in view but they don't trigger a recording.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#122

Post by noasaservice »

unfocused wrote: post #31

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, a…

> 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.

Wear a mask, and smear it with peanut butter. Or spraypaint.

Or, since they are wifi based devices, do a deauth attack against all devices on their network. The Rings don't have much of a local storage buffer.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#123

Post by lacker »

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.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#124

Post by reaperducer »

Domenic_S wrote: post #113
chrisBob wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy. It's as legal as if you were taking an iphone video or live photo of your car in the driveway and happened to catch the neighbor in the background. Ring does have the ability to set "blackout zones" in the camera's FOV, and as a good neighbor the ring owner could have excluded the neighbor's driveway/porch with a few clicks.

The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy.

Parent commenter is correct. The laws in your area are not the laws in every area. Some states and cities have restrictions on recording, even in public areas.

Illinois is one of the states with laws that prohibit many kinds of incidental audio recordings, while video is allowed. As was explained to me by a downstate communications lawyer, it's because the laws were passed by mobbed-up politicians before video was a thing, in order to protect mobsters from federal investigations.

Even today, when you see undercover recordings taken by local TV news stations in Illinois, there's never any audio.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#125

Post by lbwtaylor »

kyrra wrote: post #104
unfocused wrote: post #31

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, a…

Depending on your state and country, you may have a legal angle here if you care, see: https://recordinglaw.com/party-two-party-consent-states/ I believe it's the reason Nest defaults to not recording audio, because the law various by state, and even mixed within some states. For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal).

>>For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal).

You can record audio in public, and a street facing audio recording is low risk, unless the microphone is so sensitive that there is an argument you are picking up audio from, for example, a neighbor's back yard. I think a sign indicating audio and video recording is sensible.

That said, a backyard facing camera has real risks about the video and certainly the audio coverage. A reasonable person would not use audio recording and would carefully manage coverage to exclude neighbor's private spaces.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#126

Post by mdp2021 »

_benedict wrote: post #46
unfocused wrote: post #31

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, a…

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.

A related article appeared earlier, and I submitted it,

Dystopian doorbells: how the humble door buzzer turned into mass surveillance network

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32079896

https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/vi...

A very interesting piece of info is that «microphones that can pick up audio from up to 25 feet away». The Evening Standard is a British newspaper, and the article tackles the legal matters, but does not mention audio recording. Maybe an overlook, or maybe concerned people should check the audio related regulations further.

> Video doorbell owners must be careful not to place their cameras in areas where they might breach neighbours’ privacy. Any footage detected outside of your property is likely to breach UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#127

Post by zionic »

karaterobot wrote: post #8

> “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 wo…

I see stuff like this all the time, yet people are quick to call obvious extrapolation a “slippery slope fallacy”

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#128

Post by ls15 »

dekhn wrote: post #107
unfocused wrote: post #31

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, a…

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 f…

> I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property

In Germany people have successfully sued their neighbours for that and I fully agree with the courts. Filming others without consent is invasive.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#129

Post by chickenpotpie »

salawat wrote: post #3

If the data is not on your hardware, it is not your data.

I dislike these beliefs that idealize a world with no trust or cooperation. Humans are social animals and we do our best when we work together. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water and private host everything on our own servers because one company is doing something shady. You can own your data on someone else's hardware with strong encryption and common sense legislation that regulates how its accessed.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#130

Post by throwaway0a5e »

BeetleB wrote: post #76
doublerabbit wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its more than reasonable. It's called respect. Their house and their drive and just because voice could travel 100-feet sill doesn't mean they have the right to record it. If the speed limit is twenty and someone is driving thirty, does that give you the right to drive thirty too?

You're comparing apples and oranges. One is legal and the other isn't. They absolutely have the right to record audio that is audible on their property. It used to be the norm that if you don't want your neighbors hearing you the onus is on you to speak quietly in a private place. With the increase in such devices the norm too will shift to "know that a device is recording audio in certain zones"

Is there a "you're both wrong and I hope you live far away from me" option?

One should travel about the same speed as all the other traffic and one should not record people without their express consent regardless of the law.

The behavior both you and the person you replying to are advocating for are just examples of being a jerk within the letter of the law.

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