
Amazon's Ring Police Portal For Mass Surveillance - emcarey
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x83gyclt497fi8t/Ring%20Neighborhoods%20Portal_1.mp4?dl=0
======
emcarey
I found this dropbox link to Ring's marketing video for Police Departments to
use their smart video cameras for mass surveillance. This was made before
Amazon acquired them. At the end of the demo the CEO states that their facial
recognition search feature will be available soon.

This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China.
There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving this to cops
for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video
surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this
portal.

over 50+ local police departments are now partners.

There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for
privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial
recognition algorithms.

Ring Ukraine is hiring aggressively, they grew from 10 engineers to 500 in two
years. It's one of the top image processing R&D labs in Eastern Europe. Based
on their job descriptions.... the facial recognition search being deployed in
the police portals of Ring is pretty advanced.

for more on Ring Ukraine www.ring-ukraine.com

I got this ring marketing video from officer.com / a website for police
industry news.

~~~
joering2
> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for
> privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial
> recognition algorithms.

Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on
being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street,
don't assume your privacy is protected :(

~~~
ryanmarsh
_If you walk on public street_

No, this is not public property, it's _if you walk on private property_. Ring
cams are placed on private property and are targeted at homeowners. They
usually don't record or activate outside of a range of 30 feet or so. So if
someone drives by my house the ring cam doesn't capture it but if someone
walks by my door it does.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They usually don't record or activate outside of a range of 30 feet or so.

30 feet is often more than the distance from the front door to a sidewalk, and
often well into the actual street.

~~~
justizin
30 feet is often _across_ the street.

------
ndespres
I can not imagine developing this and thinking that it is Good. This type of
product and platform completely ignores the reality of how it will be used and
how police behave in American society.

In the demo video, their example has someone sharing a photo of "suspicious
people" walking around outside their house, and has neighbors commenting "oh
no!" on it. Now the police are alerted to this "crime" which may not even be a
crime. Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor
event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.

The next step is police or homeowner arresting or shooting someone captured on
video and posted to this social feed as having committed a crime.

The developers, marketers, SV investors, etc who promote this type of
surveillance as a good idea need a course in ethics and reality.

~~~
reaperducer
_Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event
like a car that someone doesn 't recognize being in the neighborhood._

Happened to me. I saw myself in a Nextdoor video as someone "suspicious,"
followed pleas from the homeowner and a chorus of cabbageheads for more videos
from anyone living nearby so they could identify the car I drive.

That's what I get for walking through a public park that backs into a group of
homes two hours before closing time.

The level of paranoia in the suburbs is just off the charts. I can't wait
until I can move back to a city like New York or Chicago or Houston, where I
can be safe from my neighbors, and only have to worry about the criminals.

~~~
ringolet
Bad news, then. I live in the city of Los Angeles, and our NextDoor is just as
bad.

------
emcarey
Here is an example of Ring partnering with a police department - Orlando - to
offer discounted video surveillance IoT devices to citizens, with caveat that
they can share their videos with cops to fight crime.

Orlando police department was called out for civil rights violations when they
partnered with Amazon's facial recognition technology. The thing about Ring is
it's marketed to consumers as a cheap camera....not a hard core image
processing face rec AI tool for policing built by Ukraine's biggest tech
company.

Every single security article you read about Ukraine's cyber attacks warns
about IoT and russian intelligence officials penetrating the private sector.
Do american police forces even care about the vulnerability of having this
portal app on their phones? Again, nothing is encrypted.

[https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-orlando-
ring-...](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-orlando-ring-
doorbell-20180501-story.html)

~~~
tossimba
What do you mean by nothing is encrypted? Transport encryption?

------
alphabettsy
Can’t say why this feels strange, but’s it’s also not as sensational as the
title. Ring Users have to choose to share the information. As someone who has
a Ring device, I find the neighborhood feature more a nuisance than anything.
It’s mostly people posting videos from their doorbell cams asking if anyone
knows why’s the guy with a clipboard was at their door, or posting videos of
“suspicious” people in their neighborhood without any crime to report. Not
hard to guess what the “suspicious” people shared usually look like.

Before these cameras lots of people knocked on your door while you were at
work at you never knew.

~~~
zepto
Did you miss the part about facial recognition and suspicious activity
detection?

~~~
alphabettsy
Where? The OP combines a Amazon Facial Recognition controversy with Ring
Video, which they did just acquire, but provides nothing to support the claim
that the information is somehow connected.

The OP also makes the inflated claim saying it will offer facial recognition,
when the video actually says person recognition. This is something Nest and
other systems have offered for years. Person recognition ensures your system
isn’t recording pets or squirrels in your yard and instead records actions by
actual people. If you want something to worry about, Nest is actually offering
the ability to recognize different people, powered by Google of course.

~~~
zepto
I agree that Nest is similarly worrying, and has been providing surveillance
footage to law enforcement too.

------
mattferderer
I've argued for a long time, that Nest, Ring, etc., will all become free or
highly discounted services soon as long as you're willing to allow them to
share the video data.

Based on your camera's location they would have tons of valuable data about
the people who live in that area.

Do they go on walks? If so, with who & what.

Do they go to nearby stores?

I can see coming home & getting ads for "winter clothes" & "dog food" after
walking my dog in shorts on a cold day.

I'm curious if people who live in more optimal areas would get any additional
benefits. Kind of like social media influencers.

"Live in a popular metro area? Receive $100/month for installing a camera in
your apartment."

------
will_brown
There is significant room for private policing in this space.

This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got
a text from my bank of suspicious activity on both my credit and debit card
for a total of $1,000. When I got back to my car it all made sense as my
passenger window was smashed and my “run bag” with my keys and wallet stolen.

By the time I the cops got there for the report, I spoke to the bank located
the time/store (footlocker) the cards were used, I had spoken with the store
manager and confirmed 2 men used multiple cards that were declined and
confirmed the store had video but the request must be made through HQ.

The cops dont follow up on this and request the video and footlocker won’t
give it to me. I know I could go to the store and grease the wheel to get a
copy of the video (which I may do). It’s so crazy because no one care more
than the victim of crimes to see the criminals face justice, and the
technology is in place for things like stolen credit cards or stolen phones
but then corporate America gets in the way.

I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force
corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource
the identity of the criminals. Any advice?

~~~
ant_li0n
So this is just anecdotal, but here's my 'running and car broken into story':
I parked next to a busy dog park and went for my run. Came back to broken
window. There was a lady there who took pictures of the perpetrators _and_
their license plate. I filed a report with the police. Guess what the police
did. That's right! Absolutely nothing. Not even swing by the people's house
and ask for my shit back (I was cool with paying for the broken window, even).

The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is
simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one
about the police?

~~~
dragonwriter
The police serve the state, whose interests may or may not coincide with the
individual citizen; they don't exist to make you whole when you've lost
something to wrongful acts, though they may sometimes help with that
incidentally; that's primarily the role of the civil courts and private
litigation.

~~~
CamperBob2
Then why am I paying their salaries?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Then why am I paying their salaries?

You, individually, are not.

Your shared interests with those with whom you are are collectively doing so
are, obviously, not coextensive with all of your personal interests, but are a
subset of them. Law enforcement serves (ideally) diffuse public interests,
acute private interests are served (in the legal realm) by private civil
litigation.

Particularly, you (individually, and society collectively) are not paying
enough to have adequste police resources to treat every property crime as
worthy of any follow-up beyond taking a report after dealing with every other
higher priority as determined by the people elected and given the
responsibility for setting police priorities; the fact that a crime affects
_you_ doesn't make it a higher public priority than if it affected someone
else, even if it does make it a higher _personal_ priority for you.

If you don't like the current law enforcement priorities or the resources
available at particular priority levels, you can vote for different leaders or
(in states that provide citizen initiatives) for different laws setting
enforcement priorities directly, or for more resources for police to work
farther down the list of priorities.

Or—or just in the meantime—you can avail yourself of the system set up for
dealing with private harms that is largely independent of public enforcement
priorities.

~~~
CamperBob2
I'll be sure to remember this noble policesplaining explanation the next time
a bond issue or tax bill comes up. Paying for the private administration of
justice is not how things are supposed to work in this country.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Paying for the private administration of justice is not how things are
> supposed to work in this country.

It may not be how you suppose things should work, but the split between the
public system serving public priorities and the civil system redressing
individual harms is _exactly_ how things have always been supposed to work,
both in this country and in the system on which it's legal system was directly
modeled.

Yes, law enforcement advocates often blur this when seeking funding or new
powers, claiming they work for victims. Thid has never been the case, which is
why criminal prosecutions are “the State vs. defendant” whereas private
litigation is “plaintiff vs. defendant”. Public prosecutors and law
enforcement represent the State, they aren't publicly subsidized to represent
the harmed individual the way, say, a public defender is for the accused.

------
conatus
This at Medium seems relevant from an Amazon employee on the facial
recognition aspect of this.

[https://medium.com/s/story/im-an-amazon-employee-my-
company-...](https://medium.com/s/story/im-an-amazon-employee-my-company-
shouldn-t-sell-facial-recognition-tech-to-police-36b5fde934ac)

------
sitkack
Nice, efficient, low-friction slide into fascism.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
A ring for every room citizen.

~~~
reaperducer
After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why wouldn't you let the police
watch a video feed from inside your house?

You don't have anything to hide, do you, citizen?

/s

------
SEJeff
This type of stuff is specifically why I bought a Doorbird, which is very
privacy conscious and made in Germany. Also, Doorbird has public API docs (it
is just a bad http "REST-ish" API):
[https://www.doorbird.com/api](https://www.doorbird.com/api)

It made it much easier to integrate with Home Assistant: [https://www.home-
assistant.io/components/doorbird/](https://www.home-
assistant.io/components/doorbird/)

Bonus points that the Doorbird is of a much higher build quality than the Ring
or Ring Pro.

------
emcarey
original article with link to marketing video dropbox
[https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-
soft...](https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-
software/apps-mobile-tablet-computer/product/20983888/ring-video-doorbell-
home-security-surveillance-system-community-social-media-crime-information-
sharing-app-neighborhoods)

------
secabeen
This seems fairly reasonable, as long as they keep the commitment that
officers have to request videos from camera owners. Now, in theory, the PD
could subpoena videos from ring without permission, but that's a higher bar
than this.

~~~
rayvy
Your statement reads in a pretty funny way:

> This seems fairly reasonable...

> ...as long as they keep the commitment...

I mean, I feel as if _everything_ seems reasonable as long as the original
commitment is kept. Thing is, the original commitment is rarely if ever kept
at all. This is nothing more than a problem waiting to happen, as are most
things where large bureaucracies involve themselves.

Once I read that the data is completely unencrypted (oh, I can do a man-in-the
middle and just send my own backend a copy of this video stream? awesome!) and
_anyone 's face_ (i.e., those simply walking by) could potentially be
recorded, I pretty much gave up any hope of this working responsibly.

But hey, just read another comment about Walmart apparently sending
surveillance video to the Feds (which sounds like a _very_ Walmart thing to do
actually), so apparently we have larger issues to deal with.

~~~
adrr
If I was Amazon or any other security cam company, my biggest fear would be
government using my equipment to spy on customers. Because if that ever became
public, it would kill adoption. If I was Amazon, I'd be lobbying to codify
protections against warrantless surveillance and mass pulls of data.

~~~
jschwartzi
Why not just design a system where you do not have access to the data? Using
symmetric encryption it's possible for you to create a system where only the
end customer can decrypt any of the data. Because of the mathematics involved
it's effectively impossible for you to respond to a subpoena and law
enforcement must make requests of each customer individually.

~~~
adrr
You'll lose lots of functionality since the provider just becomes dumb
storage. I am not sure how you would even do machine learning on the data, you
can't put it on the device unless it had its own massive storage and rings are
just dumb battery powered cameras. You'll need a host device to crunch data
before shipping it off to cloud for storage.

------
jellicle
I see a lot of comments about how this is "opt-in". By definition, all of the
videos that officers can see the existence of through this portal exist on
Ring's servers, not on some individually-owned machine.

So if you decline to "share" your video with the police, they can just request
it from Ring, who won't and can't decline to share. You won't be notified.

------
En_gr_Student
Trippy. So what google is offering in China might already be for sale by
Amazon here in the US.

------
tlrobinson
Anyone can download the Ring app and view this same content. You don't even
need to own a Ring device, your phone just needs to geolocate to the area you
say you live in.

------
conquistadog
Ring customer here. I recently shared a video of crime on my property using
the neighborhoods feature. I also downloaded the video to my phone, in order
to email a copy of it to cops who asked for it (and apparently don't
participate in the portal described here). The offender was subsequently
caught thanks to the video, and the cops recovered my property for me.

The opt-in is limited to per video shared, as far as I've been led to believe
and in my experience. I'd be quite alarmed to learn anyone could access
anything I haven't designated without that specific sharing step on my part.

------
jefe_
A good reminder that with connected devices, your level of privacy is dynamic
and can change with a single line of code.

------
MikeCotton45
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------
Spooky23
The vertical market solutions are worse.

My cities redlight camera system records 24x7 and retains for 30 days. All
data is local and the camera is internet accessible.

------
Kocrachon
Isn't this an opt in feature? I understand free reign police surveillance is
bad, but if a customer opts in, I don't see the issue?

~~~
fromthestart
My neighbor has such a doorbell. My facial data is captured every time I come
over or walk by with my dog. When was I given an opportunity to consent to
this?

~~~
15155
In the United States, your consent is not needed to film you in places with no
expectation of privacy.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
False. It depends on how invasive the recording was, how recognizable you are
and how the recording is used (e.g. using it for advertising).

~~~
logfromblammo
Also in the United States, you have the right to video-record anything you can
see from where you are if you have the right to be present. You have the right
to record any happenings on or in your dwelling and its curtilage. There is no
question whatsoever that everyone has the right to mount a doorbell camera and
do whatever they like with the recordings.

The only exception is that if you are not in a single-party consent state, you
might not be able to record the audio. It is unlikely that a legally protected
conversation would be happening in mic range of the camera, though.

~~~
ncallaway
But what if we changed those laws?

We could, for example, make it such that you can continue to record, but that
those recordings couldn't be used as input to facial recognition software
without the consent of the person being recorded.

Just because you _currently_ can do something legally does not mean that it
_must_ be that way.

~~~
logfromblammo
You cannot abridge freedom of expression without an amendment. Nor can you
abridge freedom of computation.

You should perhaps instead endeavor to strike down anti-mask laws as being
contrary to existing freedoms. The logical counter to automated facial
recognition technology is facial concealment practices. It is the least
harmful to liberty.

Alternatively, we could all wear--with our masks on--t-shirts with other
people's faces printed onto them (especially Batman's face). And we can, of
course, ban _the government_ from using facial recognition technology without
a specific, limited reason for doing so.

Just because _I_ can record you from my porch and identify your face as
appearing often, doesn't mean I would be able to tie that image in to a
compulsory national identity database with facial photograph data included.
Individuals might instead be able to identify a face as "John Doe #154" on
their own server, and maybe match it to "YourMetroArea Serial Package Thief
#15" on neighborhood-watch.net . Maybe I can set up an alert if any of the
shared criminal faces show up and get recognized, or I can voluntarily forward
my video to the cops when an incident actually happens. Giving cops
unrestricted access to everyone's raw feeds is a bad, bad, bad idea. You bring
in the cops only when it is apparent that a crime has been committed, an
identifiable individual is responsible, and there is now a tangible reason to
deanonymize the culprit.

~~~
maxxxxx
What's wrong with an amendment? I don't want to live in a world where I have
to wear a face mask to get some privacy. And they will probably soon not even
need faces but recognize you from your height and the way you walk.

~~~
logfromblammo
Nothing, in theory, but I don't think any amendment can get enough legislature
votes to pass and be ratified right now, and the Powers That Be are absolutely
terrified of what might come out of a Constitutional Convention. Anything
could happen: gun control, equal rights for women, gay marriage, abortion
rights, a requirement that presidents must divest all businesses and show tax
returns prior to inauguration, right to strong encryption without back doors
or key escrow, technology privacy and personal data ownership... _anything_.

So then we'll need masks and privacy-enhancing shoes.

------
pfschell
Just another example of the utter amorality of the silicon valley
mindset–which has been exported globally. Everybody cares about what they can
achieve technically, while virtually no one cares whether they should or not.

------
happyringuser
I use the Ring security system at home and own a couple of the cameras. The
security "history" feature is dirt simple but very cool -- I can trivially see
when I use different doors in my house.

The Ring smartphone app also shows me the Neighbors view for my area, which is
very similar to this product being advertised here (a feed of locations,
comments, and videos posted by smart device owners and others). I think
probably every software company of a certain size builds a law enforcement
portal, very standard feature.

My favorite part about the Ring Neighbors section of the app is that it
provides clear evidence of widespread lawbreaking by people who have
voluntarily disclosed their identities.

Specifically, Ring's cameras automatically record audio and cannot be
configured to disable the audio recording. (I e-mailed their founder a while
back and he said "soon" they'll ship a way to disable this.)

In my jurisdiction, audio recording without the consent of all people who are
recorded is illegal. Disclosing an illegally made audio recording is another,
separate crime. The law in my jurisdiction is extremely clear: if you do not
have the consent of all parties and you disclose the recording; the maximum
jail term is two years. Merely putting up a sign that says "there is a camera
recording the street near my house and if you walk in front of it I'll be
audio recording you" does not count as obtaining consent -- everyone actually
has to acknowledge that they knew they were being audio recorded.

Now, police are free to choose not to arrest people for committing this crime.
And prosecutors are free to choose not to prosecute people who break the law
in this way.

This crime is actually prosecuted, albeit rarely (I think). But … sometimes
the crime is prosecuted because people complain that they were wiretapped. One
of the reasons we want to set up security cameras is there's someone we're
afraid of who has threatened to harass us in the past and we want to know they
aren't coming around. _If_ they came by our house, saw that we had Ring
cameras, and talked in front of them, they could actually complain to local
police that we are wiretapping them, and this would at the last cause us a
major headache. So while we own some Ring cameras, _we are afraid to use
them_.

Meanwhile, by using the Ring cameras in their standard configuration, and by
sharing videos with the Neighbors feature, people are often explicitly
committing a crime. And by signing up for Ring accounts and in many cases
paying Ring money, people are making it easy to tie their identities to the
crime.

This Neighbors law enforcement portal gives police a simple, handy map of all
the people in my area who are breaking the law in a major way. They aren't
using it yet. If they ever decide to step up enforcement of this law, they
will have a handy pool of targets.

~~~
lmz
Can't you just block the mic somehow?

~~~
fixermark
Exactly. This feels like a feature that can be disabled with a steady hand and
a power-drill.

But I expect there's still a trap here for customers who don't know their
local laws and buy these items thinking it's compliant with local ordinances.
OP's comment is reasonable.

------
djrogers
This is not at all what the title makes it sound like - this is merely a
portal for law enforcement in to what is in essence a social network feed.
There’s nothing to be seen here that isn’t already publicly shared by Ring
camera owners - heck, it’s not even stuff that people are sharing privately.
People share this stuff on Ring because they want someone to get recognized or
caught for committing a crime (or a perceived one).

------
sitkack
The majority of people who I know who have all encompassing security systems
are conservative and xenophobic. This system is ripe for abuse by racists and
racist organizations. When private camera systems feed into state power, some
very bad things are setup to occur.

~~~
dsl
You should really expand your circle of friends beyond conservatives and
xenophobics.

Most of the people I know who have cameras use them to make sure their kids
get home safe on time, or keep an eye on the dog in the backyard.

~~~
sitkack
That is an uncharitable, low-comprehension reading of my first sentence.
Didn't say they were friends, and the phrase "all encompassing", isn't for the
folks looking after the dog.

------
goshx
I'd love to have this. It's certainly a lot easier than the process that I had
to go through asking my neighbors to check their cameras for a mail thief
(which police and postal inspectors didn't even bother to request).

------
John_KZ
I get a "404 That file isn’t here anymore" Error message.

~~~
zyren
Same here. Does anyone have a mirror?

------
synaesthesisx
Nextdoor is going to have a ball with this one

~~~
sodosopa
If most Nextdoor members understood the implications, it would be great. But
most people have no problem giving away their information.

------
codezero
Something similar to this which I think has gone totally unreported is that
large chains like Walmart are feeding their security cameras in real-time to
the US government, which is being used to find and track wanted criminals.

Edit: Most of the above is speculation based on stuff I've been observing over
the past few years. I don't have any evidence that the system exists, or that
it is real-time.

~~~
adventured
Do you have substantive links supporting that real-time claim?

~~~
codezero
Nope, I'm making some assumptions, I'll edit my comment to that effect. This
came to my attention when a news article about an abduction mentioned he was
caught on Walmart security cameras. Usually these are tied to a credit card
purchase, but this person was said to have paid in cash, so it piqued my
interest. There's also a huge settlement Walmart had with the US government
that was quickly followed by a big improvement in their security systems. I'm
getting real close to tin-foil hat territory, and I acknowledge that :)

------
ryanmarsh
Ok so I'm not following the argument that this is for "mass surveillance" as
if this is some gov't intrusion. I understand you might not want to be
recorded walking through my neighborhood but hear me out...

I have several ring cams and their home security system, I'm also part of
"ring neighborhoods". I live in a city with a lot of home break ins (we're
number 11 in the US for robberies). With the neighborhoods feature I get
alerts from my neighbors when they share videos from their ring cams. I
haven't yet shared anything but I do comment on shared videos. I have an
entirely different camera system on my property which records everything that
happens outside my home because I have that right in this state. What I don't
understand about this is how is me sharing video clips from my secondary
camera system any different than this portal for ring neighborhoods?

I'm not seeing the problem here.

Lets take it to the extreme...

Assuming every home in my neighborhood had ring cams, and you wandered on to
someone's personal property, and you were recorded, and they chose to share
that video, why is that a problem? This is individual property owners choosing
to surveil their property and share that video. We have that right.

Furthermore I hope ring is indexing the faces. There's several videos from my
neighborhood of people casing homes. They ring the doorbell and when they see
no one is home they jiggle the door handle (criminals are stupid, there's a
Ring cam _right there_ ). Thieves have been recorded breaking into cars and
homes but police struggle to identify the individuals. How is us, as home
owners and renters, banding together to identify criminals in our neighborhood
and willingly sharing that data with police a problem?

I'm confused.

~~~
nepeckman
> Furthermore I hope ring is indexing the faces. There's several videos from
> my neighborhood of people casing homes. They ring the doorbell and when they
> see no one is home they jiggle the door handle (criminals are stupid,
> there's a Ring cam right there). Thieves have been recorded breaking into
> cars and homes but police struggle to identify the individuals. How is us,
> as home owners and renters, banding together to identify criminals in our
> neighborhood and willingly sharing that data with police a problem?

Can you really not see the potential for issues here? Especially when it will
be software making the determination for what constitutes "casing" and
"suspicious behavior"? What happens if: I go to visit my friend and get
mistakenly labeled as "suspicious" in the Ring network. Later I'm seen walking
near the scene of a crime. I'm now a person of interest for no reason. And
this is a pretty tame example that doesn't touch on deliberate misuse, ex Ring
compiling and selling data on a persons movements throughout the day. There
are so many ways this can accidentally and deliberately be misused.

