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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

#451

Post by zalebz »

dekhn wrote: post #201
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.

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 absolut…

The neighbor has a catalog of audio recordings of conversations had on the porch 24/7.

Does this school have traffic 24/7 and do you broadcast everything from your front steps via a megaphone (and keep recordings)?

There are many comments here about video/audio recordings from public onto private property however there are various degrees of recording.

If there was a public park across the street from your house and someone setup surveillance-level equipment pointed at your front door, I'm not sure there is a rational judge who would consider this "oh well, they're on public land, nothing we can do here".

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#452

Post by dragonsky67 »

pc86 wrote: post #301
dekhn wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait til you see two neighbors arguing about property lines.

At least that I can understand. It has implications on right of way, usage, easements, property values, etc. without even getting into issues of adverse possession (which combined with property value issues can become real trouble). The line between "please don't point your camera onto my property" - something I would respect as a courtesy regardless of the law - and "I'm going to cross the street not to interact wit…

A lot of "Normal" people are not stable. People are petty, vindictive and childish, to think anything else is just flying in the face of evidence.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#453

Post by libria »

libria wrote: post #165
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.

A US law is shaped by what we think is 1) acceptable behavior 2) enforceable, practically I think video recording laws are largely influenced by 2). I can angle my Ring camera to my smoking hot neighbor so I can record her doing yardwork. Creepy AF (breaks rule 1) but at what angle is it not obviously deliberate? Turned 10 degrees toward her lawn? 30? Point being, I think US recording laws are too liberal but we need…

> I can angle my Ring camera to my smoking hot neighbor so I can record her doing yardwork

Probably too late to add that this was a hypothetical, but I'm glad the voting on this indicates how much we despise what's legally allowed.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#454

Post by nulbyte »

Zak wrote: post #364
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.

It's interesting that Germany makes a distinction between observing and recording images or video, while the US does not. The US does distinguish (typically in state law) between listening and recording. Recording is different from watching/listening. It's reasonably possible to know who is present at any given time, but not possible to know in advance who might hear/see a recording in the future. I do, however think…

> US does distinguish (typically in state law) between listening and recording. Recording is different from watching/listening. It's reasonably possible to know who is present at any given time, but not possible to know in advance who might hear/see a recording in the future.

I'm not sure how universal is, and it's not always reasonably possible to know who is listening. You can listen from afar. But I would think most states have eavesdropping laws that include overhearing. Here is an example from my state, Kentucky.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/chapter.aspx?id...

This law covers both listening and recording.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#455

Post by base3 »

I interviewed at ring before they were absorbed by Amazon. The hiring manager tried to close the deal with an inspiring story about using ring cameras to scare "gang bangers" who got too close to his girlfriend. I walked out. I'm white, but I remember Emmett Till.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#456

Post by themitigating »

heavyset_go wrote: post #369
themitigating wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision" This sounds like the justification of stupidity. If you don't know what it does it ignoring may or may not be safe. If you can't observe a benefit to you (I assume you mean obvious and causual observation) doesn't mea…

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like the OP is not justifying such a view, but explaining how others tend to see things in general.

It doesn't seem like because he's describing it directly and offering no criticism.

He also says " so we ignore the vague costs against the concrete benefits."

Which implies him and people like him or around him. Normally if someone wanted to indicate that they would say "some people think.." or "in their world/mind"

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#457

Post by aksss »

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #445
toss1 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read it as justifying the stupidity, but explaining why people feel OK engaging in it. It came across as a good explanation of why so many people are so happily thoughtless. “Thinking is hard work. That may be the reason so few engage in it.”—Henry Ford

Henry Ford is someone I would never consider a great thinker.

He explained himself well.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#458

Post by themitigating »

Jenk wrote: post #370
themitigating wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision" This sounds like the justification of stupidity. If you don't know what it does it ignoring may or may not be safe. If you can't observe a benefit to you (I assume you mean obvious and causual observation) doesn't mea…

> This sounds like the justification of stupidity. Doesn't read that way at all to me. Reads like a very accurate depiction of reality.

I didn't claim otherwise

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#459

Post by usrn »

sacrosancty wrote: post #430
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.

I heard that when cameras were first invented, some cultures rejected them because they believed they were stealing their souls. Sounds like some silly superstition but I have a feeling that what both them and you are really worried about is the fact that people looking at a photo of you are only seeing a small slice of your "soul" or personhood disconnected from the social interactions that would normally occur if t…

The older I get the more superstition makes sense. I used to think older people were superstitious because they were more likely to have existential crises (since they were closer to death) but now that I'm middle aged I've realized that it's because human reason is surprisingly slow and the universe is surprisingly big and there's just too much to work through from first principles.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#460

Post by themitigating »

toss1 wrote: post #425
themitigating wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision" This sounds like the justification of stupidity. If you don't know what it does it ignoring may or may not be safe. If you can't observe a benefit to you (I assume you mean obvious and causual observation) doesn't mea…

I didn't read it as justifying the stupidity, but explaining why people feel OK engaging in it. It came across as a good explanation of why so many people are so happily thoughtless. “Thinking is hard work. That may be the reason so few engage in it.”—Henry Ford

It's open to interpretation but the poster said

" so we ignore the vague costs against the concrete benefits."

At the end of the first paragraph. He could mean "we" as in people though. He also didn't qualify the statement with something like "Some people.." "Many think..". Finally he offers no criticism of why it may be bad to think like this.

However, you're right and reading it now after the comments people made makes that seem more of a possibility than when I first read it.

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