So much for the fourth amendment to the US Constitution. The video doorbell company has given cops access to video feeds without customers’ permission 11 times this year.
If you bought a new video doorbell in a Prime Day sale, you may want to consider the purchase after reading this. Ring, one of the top Internet-connected doorbell companies, admitted in a letter to U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D‑Mass.), that the company has given footage and other data from cameras installed at private homes to police 11 times this year without the owners’ consent.
Ring is owned by Amazon, which is not only the country’s largest online retailer but also has other businesses including streaming media and cloud services, which ultimately give the company access to huge amounts of consumer data. The Washington Post (which is owned by Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos) reported in 2019 that Ring had developed a program in which 400 police departments around the country could request access to video feeds from Ring cameras, essentially providing cops with a nationwide surveillance network without having to spend any money or jump through any legal hurdles to do so. Yesterday’s letter says that that number has grown to 2,161 police agencies and 455 fire departments that can request feeds through the Ring Neighbors app.