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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

#201

Post by dekhn »

ls15 wrote: post #128
dekhn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I live across from a school; hundreds of people see my house exterior for days. I wouldn't apply a different rule to a security camera.

I understand some folks have different privacy standards than me. I'm not asking you to follow my privacy rules, as they are a bit more open about public spaces than many people enjoy.

If somebody wanted me to not point my camera at their driveway, a legal threat would be the absolute worst way to achieve it.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#202

Post by mlyle »

woodruffw wrote: post #157
jazzyjackson wrote: post #67

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,…

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 construc…

> 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.

1. Generally they don't come from across the globe to your doorstep after your order, but from a nearby fulfillment center.

2. Getting things quickly from online shopping is just as nice in cities (actually nicer, because you can get a broader variety of goods quickly) as in suburbs.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#203

Post by sixothree »

pc86 wrote: post #132
ls15 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public (or at least severely limited) and the courts have upheld again and again that recording public areas, even from a private area, is completely find. Some jurisdictions require notification or consent for audio recording, but not all.

Police capture a tremendous amount of data using this theory. But citizens don't have access to that data because it's considered confidential.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#204

Post by justapassenger »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #67

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,…

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.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#205

Post by dekhn »

hoorible wrote: post #188
dekhn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your trash analogy doesn’t hold up because trash becomes “public” once it’s on the street which isn’t part of your property. “Publicly visible spot on my property” is a meaningless phrase; it’s still my property, and I’m legally (here at least) allowed to raise an objection to the recording of it. I can’t and wouldn’t object to someone recoding the sidewalk in front of my house. I can, and absolutely will, object to…

I can't ask the people who drop their kids at the school across the street not to look at my yard, so why would I complain about a camera? Because it's always on and recording? Still not convincing to me. My exterior yard (the part not surrounded by a tall fence) is for everybody to look at. In fact lots of people stop by my house to look at our amazing maple tree and start conversations with us.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#206

Post by mywittyname »

remflight wrote: post #138
kcb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ring devices have sirens that I would think would be quite deterent when set off. The Ring Alarm can even act as a proper monitored alarm system.

Burglars target to be in a house for roughly 5 mins. They don’t care what noise they make, they will be out before the cops can come.

Also, everyone pretty much ignores alarms. There's a 3 second window where they wonder if the alarm is there's, but they promptly ignore it afterwards.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#207

Post by adastra22 »

parkingrift wrote: post #161
adastra22 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have things stolen off my porch frequently. After installing a Ring camera, that ended immediately and never happened again. It did seem to work as a deterrent.

You don’t have to pick a dystopian spyware camera to deter porch theft. This attitude is why we can’t have nice things.

What is the issue with a porch camera looking out into a low traffic public space like my own personal driveway? I seriously don't understand the complaint here, and I say this as someone who has a Faraday pouch for my phone and a policy of no AI "assistants" WITHIN the house.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#208

Post by twoxproblematic »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#209

Post by pengaru »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #67

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,…

Is this really all that effective until practically everyone has one?

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.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#210

Post by treesknees »

woofyman wrote: post #195
Miner49er wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably illegal too. It's illegal in most states to record conversations unless you have consent from one or all parties in the conversation.

Single party recording is legal in 38 states. https://fireflies.ai/blog/call-recording-laws-in-50-states-3...

It's also specific to phone call recording. Nothing about recording the audio of someone talking outside your house.
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