Amazon Ring now has a new Community Request feature for Ring camera footage
Amazon just released a new Ring product line two weeks ago, and now it’s announcing a partnership with Flock Safety. The company is a police technology company that sells surveillance technology. These include doors, license-plate reading systems, and other similar tools. Amazon also recently partnered with Axon, previously known as Taser International, which also builds tools for the police or military.
These two partnerships indicate that Amazon’s Ring division is reintroducing tools for police (for the police to request images and videos from Ring customers without a warrant) and is aligning with companies that have ties to police departments.
The Community Requests process is described in a Ring blog post. If an agency is verified with Axon Evidence, it could submit a community request that includes a location and timeframe of an incident, as well as details about what’s being investigated.
Image Credit – InfoStock
Then, this request would appear publicly in the Neighbors feed for people living in the area. That would notify them that they have the option to give footage for the incident. Ring underlines that if you ignore the request, the agency will not be made aware of that, and your anonymity and videos will be protected. You will have the choice, if you want, to provide your videos to the agency.
On top of that, only local public safety agencies can initiate Community Requests. Local and county entities, be it law enforcement, nonprofits, or local government, can set up a Neighbors Verified account.
The agencies also don’t have information on who will receive the request to share footage, as well as how many Rign users are living in a given area, according to the post.
Federal agencies or local branches of the same wouldn’t be eligible for a Neighbors Verified account and are not eligible to file such Community Requests.
Amazon has also hinted that it may add more partnerships with other companies.
There could be a tricky problem for privacy
Of course, while the footage from Ring devices would only be given to local organizations with the permission of the footage’s owner, that doesn’t mean that other people around in the neighborhood are completely free from potential privacy issues. Of course, if they’re captured on the Ring camera, for example, if they’re walking their dog.
Erik Avakian, a technical counselor at Info-Tech Research Group and the former chief information security officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said that the arrangement could create an issue for people who never signed up for surveillance.
Making Ring footage availability opt-in doesn’t solve the issue of what happens to the footage after it’s in the hands of law enforcement or other groups that have requested it. Avakian underlines that there’s still risk for information about neighbors, visitors, or passersby to be revealed, and not just the actual incident itself.
According to Avakian, one solution would be to blur out any individuals or identifiable info from the footage if it’s not related to the investigation. It’s not clear whether this is possible. Still, companies such as Ring need to be transparent about how videos and images will be used and how long this data will be stored.
Ring devices being used to help police is generally a great thing
This new partnership can help agencies that don’t have the resources to gather as much evidence as they need. At the same time, doorbell and security camera owners are able to give more to help a potential investigation.
I quite like the fact that advancements in technology would be used to give access to the necessary data that wasn’t previously available to police officers. That should help solve crimes more quickly, hopefully, and elevate public safety.
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