Ring, a home security camera company owned by Amazon, said it will stop allowing police departments to request videos from users on its app, amid longstanding concerns from privacy advocates about the company’s relationship with law enforcement authorities.
Eric Kuhn, the general manager of subscriptions and software for the app Ring Neighbors, announced Wednesday that the company was shutting down a feature that allowed police to request and receive videos from users of the app, a social platform similar to Nextdoor and Citizen . where people can share alerts about crime near their home.
Mr. Kuhn did not say why Ring was deactivating the app, which allowed police to ask the public for help with active investigations under a special post category called “Request for Help.”
People could respond to the posts by sending police videos that might be relevant to an investigation without police having to ask for a warrant.
The “Request for Help” feature was introduced in June 2021 to provide users with more information about how local law enforcement was using Ring to gather information.
Individuals could also opt out of receiving these types of posts in the app. Previously, police could send private email requests for video to Ring users in an area of interest, not just people using the Neighbors app.
Police and fire departments will still be able to make public posts on Neighbors to share safety tips, updates and community events, Mr. Kuhn said. Users do not need a Ring device to use the app.
Privacy advocates criticized Ring for its partnerships with police and said easy-to-install home security cameras exacerbate racial discrimination.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, celebrated the change in Ring in a statement, but said the mass proliferation of doorbell cameras still threatens people’s rights.
“This is a victory in a long-standing fight not only against general police surveillance, but also against a culture in which private, for-profit companies build special tools to allow law enforcement to more easily access the companies’ users and in their data. which ultimately undermine the trust of their customers”, the announcement states.
On the Ring website, the company said law enforcement agencies can’t use the Neighbors app to access or control people’s Ring cameras or view recordings that haven’t been published to the app.
The site includes a map of the fire departments and police departments that use the app. These services have used Neighbors to provide updates on road closures and police activity, as well as share safety tips such as reminders to lock car doors at night and information about upcoming events such as virtual town halls .
Amazon acquired Ring in 2018. In a letter released by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts in 2022, Amazon said more than 2,100 law enforcement agencies participated in the Neighbors app.
In the letter, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, also said that Amazon shared Ring footage with law enforcement 11 times in 2022 using a process that does not require user consent.
“In each case, Ring found in good faith that there was an imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury to an individual that required the disclosure of information without delay,” Mr. Huseman said.
Last year, Amazon agreed to pay $5.8 million after the Federal Trade Commission said Ring had allowed its employees and contractors to access private videos and failed to implement security measures to protect customers from online threats. like hackers hacking cameras. Ring disputed those claims in a May 2023 statement announcing the settlement.
