Ring doorbell data has been collected and used by law enforcement in the United States 11 times since the start of 2022. And some lawmakers are worried about it.
Amazon-owned smart doorbell company Ring provided surveillance footage to law enforcement, without warrants or consent from owners of said doorbells, on 11 occasions in 2022, documents show. ‘Amazon sent to Congress in July.
These documents brought to lawmakers responded to questions posed by Democratic Senator Ed Markey, and were released by his office on Wednesday, July 13. They seem to show that Ring, and therefore Amazon, frequently takes its own “good faith decisions” about providing surveillance data to law enforcement without a warrant or users’ consent. Amazon’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, said the police requests complied with the “imminent danger threshold” and provided the information “without delay”.
In his letter to Congress, Ring also clarifies what is meant by “imminent danger threshold”. The society “reserves the right to respond immediately to urgent requests for information from law enforcement in cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person”.
“It has become increasingly difficult for the public to move around, congregate and converse in public without being tracked and recorded”
The documents also reveal that Ring has partnered with more than 2,000 police agencies and nearly 500 fire departments, a fivefold increase from 2009 according to the Democratic senator. All these entities are therefore able to request monitoring data from Amazon, which reserves the right to respond favorably depending on the situation.
Still, despite the reasons given by Amazon, some US lawmakers are concerned about the use of these devices for security purposes. “As my ongoing investigation of Amazon illustrates, it has become increasingly difficult for the public to move around, congregate and converse in public without being tracked and recorded”said Ed Markey.
On that note, Ring refused to commit that smart doorbells would ever leverage the voice recognition technology built into the products and denied the senator’s request to automatically stop audio recording by default when a video sequence is recorded.