Most of the time, testing products is pretty easy. If a router is better and more feature-rich than another of similar price, give it a better score and get on with your day. However, on occasion we receive products that may be dangerous to you or society in general, which we believe is the case with the Amazon-owned Ring and its relationship with law enforcement.
When you set up a Ring camera, you are automatically enrolled in the Neighbors service. (You can go into the Ring app settings and turn off feed integration and notifications for neighbors, but that’s your responsibility.) Neighbors, also a standalone app, shows you an activity feed of all nearby Rings -camera owner. with posts about dogs found, hoses stolen and a safety report showing how many calls for help – violent or non-violent – have been made in the past week. It also offers public safety agencies such as local police and fire departments the opportunity to disseminate information widely.
But it also allows Ring owners to send videos they’ve captured with their Ring video doorbell cameras and outdoor security cameras to law enforcement. This is a unique feature of Ring – even Nextdoor removed the “Forward to Police” feature in 2020, which allows Nextdoor users to forward their own security posts to local law enforcement agencies. If a crime has been committed, law enforcement should obtain a search warrant to access civilian video footage.
Wait a minute
Several members of WIRED’s Gear team have spoken to Ring about this feature over the years. The company has made it clear that it’s what customers want, even though there’s no evidence that more video surveillance footage is making communities safer. Instead, Neighbors increases the possibility of racial profiling. This makes it easier for both individuals and law enforcement agencies to target specific groups suspected of committing a crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or country of origin.
We’ve been concerned about this issue since Ring began working with law enforcement agencies to give out free video cameras. Through the Neighbors Public Safety Service (NPSS) in the app, law enforcement can create requests for assistance and neighbors can contact camera owners directly to request footage.
We believe this feature shouldn’t exist. When we asked Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friars about the steps the company is taking to reduce racial profiling, Friars cited the work of Jennifer Eberhardt, a Stanford professor whose work on the psychological connections between race and crime inspired her MacArthur Genius Scholarship.
Much of Eberhardt’s work revolves around decision points — the more you get people to stop and think before they act, the less likely they are to engage in unconscious racial bias. By integrating a seamless feature directly into Neighbors, it becomes much easier for ring owners to bombard law enforcement with unfounded and potentially biased alerts.
It’s important to note that the law doesn’t allow law enforcement to access your personal videos or information without your permission. Law enforcement agencies must rely on an active investigation within a specified time and geographic time frame and may not solicit information about lawful activities such as protests. Ring isn’t allowed to access your video data either, although so far this hasn’t stopped it. Earlier this year, when the company wrongly allowed its employees and contractors to illegally interview customers, the Federal Trade Commission proposed the company with a proposed order that would allow the deletion of data from videos unlawfully viewed by employees to result in a $5 refund $.8 million was earmarked for consumers and the implementation of a strict privacy and security program.
That’s not all
Ring has taken steps to address concerns about its relationship with law enforcement. In 2021, the company released the results of a nearly two-year review with the Policing Project at New York University’s School of Law. Ring has made policy changes, including posting Help Requests, turning NPSS into a local service, and introducing new community guidelines for posting. For example, you can now only report facts, not feelings. You’re no longer allowed to post pictures of people just because they make you feel uncomfortable.
If you’ve recently signed up for Neighbors, you may have noticed these effects. When I first tested a Ring camera, the neighbors showed me a weekly crime report for two dozen “police incidents” that had happened on my street, which got my pulse racing and convinced me that we were among criminals live in a degenerate society. A recent look showed me that on my neighbors feed, 50 percent are now posting missing cats and only 50 percent terrified people about gunshots or thieves. It’s an improvement.