Amazon’s Ring Will Reveal Police Requests to Share Video
The popular home security app, responding to criticism from privacy advocates, is launching a “Request for Assistance” feature providing customers with an option to block police from seeing footage.
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Ring, the home-security device company bought by Amazon, is planning to make police requests for users’ video footage through its neighborhood watch app more transparent, in response to criticism from privacy advocates that products like its video doorbell facilitate surveillance and profiling, reports Reuters. The neighborhood watch app will begin rolling out its new “Request for Assistance” feature next week. According to Ring’s active agency tracker, hundreds of police and fire departments have joined the app. Through this new feature, no information would be shared with agencies without users choosing to do so. Requests can also only be issued by verified agency profiles, and history requests will be logged online, so users can see how the police is using their posts. Ring also said that it has rules in place to prevent “overly broad requests” from agencies.
