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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

#481

Post by seanmcdirmid »

smegger001 wrote: post #478
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you don’t have prowler or package theft problems, they aren’t really necessary. I personally have found my Nest cameras indispensable. Ironically, if police would just do their job on property crime, they wouldn’t be so needed.

>Ironically, if police would just do their job on property crime, they wouldn’t be so needed. if the last several years have taught us anything its that police only do there jobs when they feel like it. whether that processing rape kits, stopping gunmen, stopping property theft, doesn't matter that wont do it.

When police are incredibly understaffed, they don’t do their job because they don’t have many to do it. Granted, everyone is understaffed these days, so it’s not just a police problem, and prosecutor/judges in my county make things harder for them by auto releasing the property-crime offenders they do catch (doesn’t matter if they have 10 warrants for times they didn’t return to court after being released from previous arrests).

It’s not just the police’s fault that they are ineffective, the politicians (that appoint judges and prosecutors) and the people that vote for the politicians take a lot of the blame also. And even after that it’s just a bad time for labor and crime.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#482

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ensignavenger wrote: post #25
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you don’t have prowler or package theft problems, they aren’t really necessary. I personally have found my Nest cameras indispensable. Ironically, if police would just do their job on property crime, they wouldn’t be so needed.

There are alternative cameras that don't have the same privacy concerns.

Nest has the best experience as far as I can tell. The person recognition works fairly well, so I’m not getting alerts for every rabbit or blown tree branch that wanders into view.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#483

Post by seanmcdirmid »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #28
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you don’t have prowler or package theft problems, they aren’t really necessary. I personally have found my Nest cameras indispensable. Ironically, if police would just do their job on property crime, they wouldn’t be so needed.

Where the hell do you all live where this is a common problem? Out of all of my friend and relatives, 100s of people, none of them have ever complained about vandalism/theft.

Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. We don’t have it as bad as some other neighborhoods (like Bitter Lake or Queen Anne, or anywhere South Seattle), and the part of Ballard I live in is pretty nice for the nearby area, but property crime is still a huge problem. It was worse last year when there was a huge encampment set up at the Ballard commons.

I’ve been hearing similar problems in many big cities as well (Portland, SF, LA, Austin, …) but you might be more immune to the trend if you live in a suburb instead (eg Bellevue or Kirkland rather than Seattle, but thefts are beginning to intrude even there).

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#484

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xeromal wrote: post #44
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have friends in NYC, Boston, Houston, Dallas, and Seattle and they have never mentioned package theft or vandalism. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming that since they don't mention it that it must not be a problem for them.

I'm sure we could pull up ring footage of thieves in each of those cities as anecdata, but it would just be pedantry. At least here in LA, the looting of our train cars got so bad that some companies just started bypassing the city. Personally, I live in the valley (SFV of LA) and haven't had issues, but I live in a low-middle class area full of russian/persian immigrants. I wonder if wealthier areas are targeted?

Lower class neighborhoods usually have a lot of safe guards built up over time because “they are used to the problems” whereas middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods are just getting their first taste of the problem in the last few years and are still pretty soft as targets. If you are a package their, go after the rich people who are less likely to have some kind of protection.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#485

Post by seanmcdirmid »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #30
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you don’t have prowler or package theft problems, they aren’t really necessary. I personally have found my Nest cameras indispensable. Ironically, if police would just do their job on property crime, they wouldn’t be so needed.

what is a prowler. how does a camera prevent package theft? you get information about who took it but it doesn't prevent them from taking it, or get it back. deterrence only?

Who said anything about deterrence? Get you packages as soon as they are dropped, scream out the window when someone decides to check your door handles, go down stairs with a baseball bat if they keep at it. Cameras enable all of that, we are basically in the DIY of crime prevention because the police can’t really help us.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#486

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bombcar wrote: post #418
adastra22 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I was motivated to get a Ring camera after a couple instances of porch theft. In the years since it has never happened again. So there is some deterrent value. I would never install a smart device INSIDE my home. But I don’t see why people are freaking out about door/driveway cameras.

The number of people who report this is ... significantly high. Perhaps Amazon was instructing their drivers to steal packages until they see a Ring installed. (Even with a Ring camera you should still get recordings of people noticing you have it ...)

A doorbell camera has a field of view that is much less than the range you can see it. So it can deter without catching people in their history.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#487

Post by seanmcdirmid »

corrral wrote: post #94
giraffe_lady wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah my personal view is that these cameras do nothing except widen police surveillance capacity but I'm somewhat interested in what the people who buy them think they are doing.

I expect people who buy them haven't personally witnessed what it looks like to report property crime—even fairly major property crime—to the police. Which is to say, they don't realize that there's almost no chance they'll do anything about it at all except issue a report for insurance (if you want one, and probably for a fee just to add insult to injury) even if you come to them with all kinds of evidence, up to an…

Alot of the footage is passed along on next door. People do connect the dots, eg they tell you where the guy who grabbed your package is camping, then you can try to go retrieve it yourself.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#488

Post by ChoGGi »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #347
alanh wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My front door is not a 'public area', not really

You don't have a legal expectation of privacy anywhere visible from public property, including even the inside of your house viewable from a public easement/street. Because of this, it's legal for someone to point a camera right inside your window or front door. It's also illegal (public indecency) for you to be naked in your own window or open door.

"naked in your own window or open door. "

That's legal in Canada, or at least the police won't arrest you if you do it in your apartment across from a school.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#489

Post by dm319 »

googlryas wrote: post #404
dm319 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also no fan of Ring or similar, though the reasons are slightly different. We lost our cat recently, and I went round my neighbourhood knocking/ringing on every door to ask around. It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered. I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I d…

I find this viewpoint very strange. Why are you jumping to the idea that you're being treated as suspicious, and being judged, and being avoided as a result of that judgement? What if people were just...doing something else? At work? At the movies? Driving? Pooping? Do you feel judged when you walk up to doors with peepholes?

Because when you can hear that people are clearly in, and you know yourv video feed is available to them, and no one answers the door after waiting and ringing twice, it's a reasonable conclusion. Especially when this seems to be a feature of those with Ring doorbells.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#490

Post by dm319 »

deltree7 wrote: post #378
dm319 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also no fan of Ring or similar, though the reasons are slightly different. We lost our cat recently, and I went round my neighbourhood knocking/ringing on every door to ask around. It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered. I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I d…

If you had a Ring, you would have most likely gotten clues about your cat. If you had asked your neighbors nicely to view their Ring history, you would have mostly likely gotten even more clues or even found your cat.

Seeing a cat pass on a video feed is unlikely to tell you where your cat is.
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