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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

#261

Post by danaris »

phailhaus wrote: post #17
nomilk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If forced to, users may forego privacy for convenience. But in the case of ring there's no reason users shouldn't be able to expect both.

But they don't. They see the product, it's useful to them, they buy it. Practically nobody is doing research into privacy practices of the things they buy. It's only a problem if it becomes a news story.

You're missing the "informed" part of "informed consent".

20 years ago, if the world's biggest online retailer had a particular security camera that was their most recommended, chances are it would just be a pretty good security camera.

Today, that retailer is deliberately pushing its own products that compromise our privacy so they can collect more data on us in hopes of making more money—and, if that weren't enough, providing it to the police with no warrant, no consent, and no recourse.

In my experience, most "average people"—not tech-savvy people, and not conspiracy nuts—fall into one of two camps on privacy: Either they don't understand that their privacy is likely to be violated by something like Ring, or they do, but they've come to the conclusion that there's no hope for privacy and just given up.

In neither of these cases can true informed consent be possible.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#262

Post by dionidium »

banannaise wrote: post #246
dionidium wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sta…

What, we're just going to skip over the fact that the police can beat the shit out of you and throw you in jail for a few hours, largely consequence-free, before any of those parties even get involved?

"We can't surveil criminals because the cops will beat them up before they're even charged" does not seem to me to describe a problem that has absolutely anything to do with cameras.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#263

Post by mdavis6890 »

_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.

Yes that’s reserved for the government only.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#264

Post by mlyle »

woodruffw wrote: post #255
mlyle wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think our current scheme is wrong, in a moral sense If we had, say, 1000x the resources that could be used without too adverse of consequences, would it still be wrong in your eyes? Or are you saying that you don't believe that the resource use is justified within our current constraints?

The latter. But that's one among many sufficient reasons: I also think it's indicative of an economic and social policy that encourages civic alienation and delocalization. The more snappy way of saying it: we're maximizing short term advantages (any plastic crap I want in 48 hours, shareholder value) at the cost of long term advantages (cities and towns worth living in, a sense of community rooted in part in support…

Is it always wrong to prioritize a short term advantage over a long term advantage?

> cities and towns worth living in

Like-- this is something America has really just not understood how to do. It doesn't have much to do with e-commerce (which is still popular in places that do know how to do it).

> a sense of community rooted in part in supporting local businesses

Sometimes having a strong local business is great. But in the best case, you're limited by the tastes and curation choices of a small number of vendors-- you lose the value of the long tail. And in the worst case, you find yourself beholden to an actively exploitative and/or hostile supplier.

> not needing surveillance in every aspect of our lives because we've automated out the tacit security of being around other humans

We're personally safer and more secure in our effects than in any time before in US history (well, the best point was a decade ago, but still-- we're about the same as then). It has nothing to do with surveillance or e-commerce, and only minimally has to do with suburbia vs. city living.

In the end, I think you've just got "this feels wrong to me". I bet I could look at a choice that you've made and I'd recoil from it as wasteful and repugnant, too.

P.S. Thank you for indulging me in this conversation. I'm going to be teaching AP Microeconomics for the first time next year, and as much as anything I'm practicing being the devil's advocate.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#265

Post by alasdair_ »

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…

Something to consider would be pointing a directed beam of sound towards the microphone. Bonus points if it’s an endless loop of you saying “I like to spy on my neighbors” over and over again.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#266

Post by chickenpotpie »

jjulius wrote: post #175
chickenpotpie wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a community like yours and IMO you're just hurting yourself. Your home is probably already covered by everyone else's cameras and they can just pull the footage from them. It seems like the only person that doesn't have access to recordings of their own home now is you.

OP already responded to your comment, but I'll bite and argue that, in your hypothetical, they're not hurting themselves. First, they're taking a stand based on principal. That they're successful in doing so is a win for them. Second, to your point, they're still covered in case of theft because their "home is probably already covered by everyone else's cameras and they can just pull the footage from them". Assuming…

> First, they're taking a stand based on principal.

I'm all for that, but taking a stand doesn't benefit the individual. Taking a stand is for the benefit of society and requires the collaboration of society

> Assuming they're on good terms with their neighbors, this request should be pretty easy and quick to fulfill. If they're not, local PD can still get a warrant for the footage.

yes and that process is just objectively much more difficult than pulling the data from your own camera, which takes all of five seconds versus an order from a judge. That means they're life is worse.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#267

Post by chickenpotpie »

anigbrowl wrote: post #191
chickenpotpie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acc…

Reasonable, but your position if taken to extremes can lead to oppressive conformism - eg if you choose not to have or share footage from a security camera, you become an object of suspicion yourself. Relying on 'common sense legislation' assumes a level of probity which is often sadly lacking.

So don't take my position to the extremes.

Top level comment was a very general blanket statement. I'm saying there's a middle ground.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#268

Post by kelnos »

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…

I don't think the urban/suburban divide really covers it, though. I live in a city, in a neighborhood with an okay amount of local retail, but I still order a lot of stuff online and have it delivered.

I usually get my groceries delivered. It saves me an hour of driving to the grocery store, shopping, paying, driving home, and making several trips up and down four flights of stairs to bring the items home. I'm totally happy to pay a delivery charge and a tip to not have to deal with that. Yes, I do walk to the local grocery if I just need a couple items, but I usually do a larger delivery grocery order around once a month.

Neighborhood stores can't stock everything, especially in a city where space is expensive. Looking through my last 3 months of Amazon orders (24 orders), I see only three items that I could have gotten by walking somewhere locally, and they were all things that were part of a larger order that was mostly stuff I could not get locally. And that's just Amazon; I definitely have purchases from other online retailers over the past three months, and for the most part I'd guess they're all things I couldn't get within walking distance either.

My neighborhood shines when it comes to restaurants, bars, parks, and personal services (hair cuts, mani/pedi, that sort of thing). A good variety of groceries are available within walking distance, and even some more exotic stuff (there's a high-end cake bakery a couple blocks away, for example), but otherwise most regular purchases aren't easily fulfilled with a short walk. Most of those other purchases would require a 45-60 minute bus ride, or a 15-20 minute drive (with no guarantee of finding what I want). And if I need to do that, I'll probably just order it online instead.

I do agree that the situation isn't ideal. I generate a lot of cardboard and paper recycling waste, though fortunately not that much plastic. I'm not sure about fuel usage: if I have to drive somewhere to buy something, it might be a wash compared to a delivery vehicle bringing it to me. And the package theft problem (and the "solutions") we've created for ourselves is ridiculous.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#269

Post by Pakdef »

gffrd wrote: post #199

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 bi…

In addition to that, they pay a lot for the service... someone I know just had 3 cameras installed and pays $80 a month for cloud storage...

Buying your own and hosting it yourself would pay for itself in just a couple months with something like Reolink RLC-510A and a cheap VPS https://www.lowendstock.com/.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#270

Post by brewdad »

naasking wrote: post #256
pc86 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public It's not clear that "on your property" counts as "in public" in all cases.

Front yard, visible from the street, probably "public" in most jurisdictions. Backyard, or somewhere shielded from view without entering yours or someone else's private property? I would argue that is "private" space that should be protected but it would probably come down to the specific circumstances to be certain.
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