Amazon will no longer share footage recorded by its Ring doorbells with police at their request, a reversal of a privacy position criticized by civil liberties groups.
Amazon’s Ring will end its Request for Assistance tool, a button on its website that allowed fire and police departments to contact Amazon and request footage from any Ring devices. Privacy advocates had slammed the company for handing over the footage without getting the consent of the Ring owners. Now, if police wish to acquire the footage, they must obtain a warrant or prove to Amazon that there is an emergency.
The tool will end service starting next week, according to a blog post by Ring Neighbors app developer Eric Kuhn, although the post did not say why the feature was being removed. Amazon claims that it disabled the feature to redirect resources to newer and better features in the Neighbors app, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
For doorbell owners who subscribe to the Ring Protect Plan, all recordings are stored in the customer’s account. The server periodically deletes files or allows the user to delete recordings manually, according to the company.
The company confirmed in a letter to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in July 2022 that it sent at least 11 recordings of Ring footage to local law enforcement without the owners’ consent. The information was requested by Markey in response to an independent audit by the Policing Project at New York University’s School of Law.
Each of the 11 instances involved “an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury,” Amazon said when justifying the practice.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Electronic Frontier Foundation had claimed that the Ring was used to create a network of police surveillance.
The policy change reflects a shift in priorities for Amazon’s Ring. The device was initially promoted as a tool for improving community safety and diminishing crime. The Neighbors app, which is the primary hub used in neighborhoods to communicate between Ring owners, will now shift its priorities to sharing images and content unrelated to crime and safety, Kuhn said.
