Ring Has A 'Head Of Face Recognition Tech,' Says It's Not Using Facial Recognition Tech. Yet.

from the currently-not-doing-this-thing-we're-considering-doing dept

Amazon has developed facial recognition tech it's inordinately proud of. Known as "Rekognition," it's not nearly as accurate as its deliberately misspelled moniker suggests it is. It drew Congressional heat last year when it misidentified a number of Congress members as criminals.

There has been no interplay between Amazon's Rekognition software and the Ring doorbell cameras its subsidiary is pushing to cops (who then push them to citizens). Yet. Maybe there will never be. But it's pretty much an inevitability that Ring cameras will, at some point, employ facial recognition tech.

There's probably no hurry at the moment. The doorbell camera company doesn't seem all that concerned about optics -- not after partnering with 400 law enforcement agencies en route to securing 97% of the doorbell camera market. When not writing press releases and social media posts for cop shops, Ring is waging a low-effort charm offensive with vapid blog posts meant to boost its reputation as a crime-fighting device while burying all the questionable aspects of its efforts -- like encouraging "sharing" of footage with law enforcement so they don't have to go through the hassle of obtaining a warrant.

Ring is toughening up a bit in the face of all this bad press. It's engaging directly with critics on Twitter to rebut points they haven't made and answer questions they didn't actually ask. It responded to the ACLU's post that theorized about Amazon's forays into surveillance tech, positing that the company's Rekognition software and Ring doorbell cameras make for a dynamic surveillance duo -- one that faces outwards from millions of private homes around the nation.

Ring says it does not use facial recognition tech in its doorbells. It has made this statement multiple times in the past couple of weeks. That's good news. But it's not the end of the story. Nicole Nguyen and Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed are countering Ring's PR push by pointing out that it's a little weird for a company that says it does not use facial recognition tech to employ someone directly tasked with exploring facial recognition opportunities. (via Boing Boing)

While Ring devices don’t currently use facial recognition technology, the company’s Ukraine arm appears to be working on it. “We develop semi-automated crime prevention and monitoring systems which are based on, but not limited to, face recognition,” reads Ring Ukraine’s website. BuzzFeed News also found a 2018 presentation from Ring Ukraine's "head of face recognition research" online and direct references to the technology on its website.

Maybe the stateside version isn't ready to mix in the tech, but its Ukraine arm seems poised to explore this option. The presentation BuzzFeed located was created by Oleksandr Obiednikov, who listed himself as Ring's "Head of Face Recognition Tech" in his presentation about "alignment-free face recognition."

Ring's US operations also indicate Ring is looking into this, even if it hasn't added the tech yet.

In November 2018, Ring filed two patent applications that describe technology with the ability to identify “suspicious people” and create a “database of suspicious persons.”

So, the company's assertions about facial recognition tech appear to be true, but only because it has added the qualifier "currently" to its statements. The pairing of doorbell cameras to unproven, often-inaccurate facial recognition tech is all but assured. Ring's denials would be a whole lot more palatable if it wasn't exploring this option elsewhere in the world.

We may only be on the outskirts of a corporation-enabled dystopia at the moment, but a future full of unblinking eyes containing biometric scanning capabilities is swiftly approaching. And this surveillance state won't be the product of the show of force by the government but the result of private companies using law enforcement to expand their user base with a series of "would you kindly?" requests.

Filed Under: doorbells, face recognition, ring, surveillance
Companies: amazon, ring

Ring Let Cops Know How Often Their Requests For Camera Footage Were Ignored

from the customer-service-still-matters dept

I have seen the future and it's hundreds of law enforcement agencies morphing into Amazon subsidiaries. Amazon's Ring doorbell camera currently commands 97% of the doorbell camera market. It's easy to see why. Amazon has the marketing power and cash flow to hand out discounted cameras to police departments, using them as loss leaders to ensure buy-in by end users, many of whom get these cameras for free from local cops.

What's the catch? There isn't one* -- not if you disregard the implications of accepting a free surveillance camera from law enforcement. Ring wants more end users and for more of those end users to download its Neighbors app. Neighbors accelerates the sharing of doorbell cam footage. It also accelerates bigotry, which tends to turn virtual meetups on Neighbors into a discussion about shady people of color wandering the neighborhood.

^{*Sometimes there's a catch.}

It's not enough for Ring to command nearly 100% of the market. It also spends its time vetting law enforcement statements and press releases to ensure cop shops stay on brand and push the Neighbors app. The more people cops can convince to use the app, the bigger the discount on the next order of Ring doorbells.

Sharing is what matters. Encouraging people to share footage of suspicious activity with their neighbors via the app breaks down reservations people might have about turning over footage to cops. Law enforcement requests are made through a portal provided by Ring, which includes a map that shows cops every residence that has a Ring doorbell installed.

The Guardian has obtained documents from two more of the 400+ law enforcement agencies currently partnering with Ring. These documents contain screenshots of Ring doorbell maps from the portal, as well as its template for warrantless footage requests.

The documents also contain a very heavily-edited press release from the Gwinnett County Police Department. Nearly the entire thing has been rewritten by Ring reps, excising mentions of Ring's donation of 80 cameras, as well as language that makes it clear law enforcement will have access to any footage uploaded to the Neighbors app. [Picture via The Guardian]

The end game is seamless access to recordings, with the wheels greased by social media interaction and the implicit suggestion that recipients of free doorbell cameras may want to repay the favor with a little footage.

But not everyone is willing to give cops warrantless access to footage. Well, Ring is on top of that as well, as Dell Cameron reports for Gizmodo. Upon request, it will hand over rejection stats to law enforcement, letting them know how often citizens (or "civilians" in Ring's PR language) aren't meeting their tacit obligations. Turns out it's most of them.

The request data acquired by Gizmodo, which covers a five-month period in 2018, showed that Ring customers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had largely ignored police requests for footage. Between May and September of 2018, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department issued 22 requests via Ring’s law enforcement portal. Those requests resulted in 319 emails being sent to residents asking them to hand over footage, a statistic that the company now says it keeps confidential.

Supposedly, Ring is no longer doing this. According to its spokesperson, it no longer makes this info available to law enforcement agencies. But this low hit rate has to be a concern. The requests come via the Neighbors app or via email. In some cases, people may not have seen the email. In many more cases, people probably just opted out by ignoring or deleting the request.

Police officers also do not know who they're sending requests to. A geofence of sorts narrows down what cameras might provide useful footage, but the portal does not identify the end users. This is a good way to handle this, ensuring there are no reprisals for refusals. But this siloing means nothing when cops are part of the installation team.

In Fort Lauderdale, police went to dozens of homes and helped residents install Ring cameras after holding raffles at neighborhood watch meetings and handing them out for free.

Given the amount of data that is available to law enforcement via the portal, it's pretty easy to narrow down who's been helpful and who should have their emergency call backburnered. Given enough rejections, officers may just decide these Ring owners don't care enough about the safety of their neighborhood to warrant a speedy response. But if these requests are headed to inboxes filled with other junk email, there's probably no malice intended. Hopefully, no one's treating these non-responses as antagonistic, but that's always a concern when the cop mindset tends to be "us vs. them" -- especially those who refer to work as engaging in a "war" against crime.

Every document obtained by journalists brings more bad Ring news to the discussion. The company has already decided it will back the blue. Those in blue seem to enjoy this partnership, even if it means they won't be obtaining much footage and all public-facing announcements must be run by the company before they can be released. Amazon is blurring the line between public and private to grow a private market. If cops want to get pissed off about anything, maybe it should be their demotion to Ring brand ambassadors.

Filed Under: doorbells, police, requests for information, ring, surveillance
Companies: amazon, ring

California Police Officers Are Handing Out Free Doorbell Cameras In Exchange For Testimony In Court

from the underbidding-Crime-Stoppers-and-raising-propriety-questions-in-court dept

Snitches no longer get stitches. In the year of our lord two-thousand-nineteen, snitches get street surveillance gear from Amazon.

Amazon's Ring doorbell -- which sports a handy camera to catch all those package thieves -- has swallowed up more than 200 police departments with its charm offensive. Cops get doorbell cams at a discount and hand them out for free to locals with the assumption residents will repay the favor by granting officers warrant-free access to footage any time they ask.

To decrease friction, Ring -- which has final edit approval on police publicity efforts -- nudges people towards its snitch app, Neighbors, which encourages users to post any suspicious footage they capture. Ring also nudges law enforcement towards more social media interaction with Ring users to blur the line between sharing with neighbors and sharing with government employees.

The push continues. Amazon sees a market worth cornering and cops see a handy way to turn multiple doorsteps into extensions of their existing surveillance network. Win-win for all involved, I guess, except those who want to secure their homes without feeling obligated to hand over footage whenever the government thinks it might be helpful.

The advantages for law enforcement are obvious. And that has led to more… um… proactive efforts by law enforcement to spread the good word about these doorbell cameras. Louise Matsakis reports for Wired that a California law enforcement agency recently offered Ring doorbells to citizens in exchange for some help with their cop work.

On June 21, Chris Williams, the captain of the El Monte Police Department in California, sent an email to staff reminding them about a new incentive for crime witnesses to share information with law enforcement. Rather than the cash reward used by some programs, El Monte gave out camera-equipped doorbells made by the home security company Ring, which retail starting at $99.

The asking price for a "free" $99 camera seems to be a bit steep. According to documents obtained by Caroline Haskins of Motherboard, the El Monte PD isn't interested in vague tips about somebody seeing somebody do something. This may be acceptable for confidential informants, but potential camera "winners" have a higher bar to hurdle. The tips must be specific, result in a prosecution, and -- here's the big one -- potential camera recipients must be willing to testify in court.

Since the PD is also sort of getting a free camera -- what with Ring's online portal that allows cops to locate any Ring owner and ask them directly for footage sans warrant -- this seems like a raw deal for the general public. While most people do want to help law enforcement put criminals behind bars, a decent percentage of those probably aren't willing to go so far as to get on the stand during a trial.

Ring says it doesn't encourage this sort of thing, nor does it craft scripts or write PR pitches suggesting cops offer free cameras in exchange for testimony. But Ring definitely encourages this sort of thing with its unending push to deploy more cameras and get more people using its Neighbors app.

A few weeks after Williams sent out a reminder about the rewards program, a Ring employee emailed him with a congratulatory note: “Since EMPD first onboarded on 5/1, you have all increased your Neighbors app users (El Monte residents) by 1,058 users! Great job!”

And there's even more encouragement where that came from.

Ring nominated the El Monte Police Department for Ring’s “Agency of the Year Award,” according to new emails obtained by Motherboard. One email from a Ring representative, dated July 2019, asks the police department to submit “a success story” that resulted from using the Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal.

There's really no downside to the El Monte PD's exchange program, other than some negative press. If someone is willing to do all of this for a $99 camera, it's unlikely they'll push back at all when the PD starts asking for their doorbell footage.

Filed Under: california, doorbells, police, ring doorbells, snitch, testimony
Companies: amazon, ring

Amazon Has Already Roped 200 Police Departments Into Its Ring Doorbell Surveillance/Promotional Scheme

from the good-work-if-you-can-get-it-and-Amazon-quite-obviously-can dept

If I've learned anything from the past 20 years of J-horror remakes, these documents are the last thing Motherboard's Caroline Haskins will see before she dies.

At least 200 law enforcement agencies around the country have entered into partnerships with Amazon’s home surveillance company Ring, according to an email obtained by Motherboard via public record request.

Ring has never disclosed the exact number of partnerships that it maintains with law enforcement. However, the company has partnered with at least 200 law enforcement agencies, according to notes taken by a police officer during a Ring webinar, which he emailed to himself in April. It’s possible that the number of partnerships has changed since the day the email was sent.

Amazon is slowly but steadily building a surveillance network. It's not just building it for itself. It has Alexa for that. It's building a new one for US law enforcement agencies, free of charge, in exchange for free promotion and future long-term buy-in.

Ring's doorbell cameras are a consumer device, but many, many people are getting them for free from local PDs. The incentives work for everyone… except for those concerned about a private company turning people's houses into de facto police cameras. The police hand out the free cameras to citizens, implicitly suggesting end users could repay their debt to um... society[??] by providing camera footage on demand. Amazon gives these cameras to PDs for next to nothing, asking only that PDs promote Ring cameras and push camera recipients into downloading Amazon's snitch app, Neighbors.

Two hundred law enforcement agencies is a drop in the S3 bucket, considering there's almost 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. But every market starts somewhere, and Amazon is aggressively pursuing this untapped arena with free doorbell cameras, a free law enforcement surveillance portal, and a bunch of incentives that skew heavily in favor of the watchers. Sooner or later, the other Amazon marketing push -- facial recognition -- will get folded in, giving cops the chance to determine who you're hanging out with by using your own doorbell against you.

If you would like a chance to die within seven days of reading them, Motherboard has posted its public records stash here. It adds to the wealth of information showing Amazon is steadily pursuing non-paying customers -- so long as they exhibit a bit of brand loyalty. Its paying customers -- the millions of Prime members -- are now just sting fodder to be used in a never-ending string of disappointing anti-package theft operations.

But Amazon's willingness to tie government agencies into contracts that demand final cut approval on press releases and a certain amount of free publicity blurs the line between public and private. That blurred line, unfortunately, runs right up to the doorsteps of suburban America, converting personal security into police surveillance.

Filed Under: doorbells, law enforcement, police, ring doorbells, surveillance
Companies: amazon, ring

Amazon Teams With Colorado Police, US Postal Service On Sting That Catches Zero Package Thieves

from the your-tax-dollars-looking-busy dept

Cops are handing out hackable doorbells to local homeowners like so much razorbladed Halloween candy. Only it's not razor blades. It's surveillance. Amazon's Ring doorbells are the new party favors, available to citizens at a steep discount. Sometimes, they can actually get them for free from local PDs. And why not? It's not like the cops spent their money. It seems only fair for citizens to take home some of what they've purchased.

The promise is a bit more security, in the form of a doorbell that watches your doorstep and the yard/driveway/street beyond. The implicit suggestion is that you repay this deep discount by allowing cops to access camera footage at will. Even if you demur, you'll be added to local law enforcement's Ring map, showing all the houses cops can approach to ask for camera footage.

The doorbells are also tied to an app, Neighbors -- one that Amazon markets with footage of doorstep thefts. Amazon likes this angle so much it's hiring staff to produce news coverage of criminal activities with a hyperlocal focus.

Cops like Ring. And Amazon/Ring likes cops. More tax dollars have headed Amazon's way in recent months, but documents obtained by Vice show this particular partnership -- which also roped in the US Postal Service -- failed to pay off for the citizens funding it. Caroline Haskins reports that a Christmas sting operation in Colorado utilized a lot of tech and government personnel, but failed to round up even the usual suspects.

New documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information request show how Amazon, Ring, a GPS tracking company, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service collaborated on a package sting operation with the Aurora, Colorado Police Department in December. The operation involved equipping fake Amazon packages with GPS trackers, and surveilling doorsteps with Ring doorbell cameras in an effort to catch someone stealing a package on tape.

The documents show the design and implementation of a highly elaborate public relations stunt, which was designed both to endear Amazon and Ring with local law enforcement, and to make local residents fear the place they live. The parties were disappointed when the operation didn’t result in any arrests.

Vice/Motherboard has posted the documents online so the public can retrace the fail trail. The sting operation involved two government agencies, two companies, 25 Amazon boxes, 15 Ring doorbell cameras, 15 GPS tracking devices, and seven Colorado zip codes. The most notable number, however, is the arrest total: zero.

During this driest of runs, the PR coordinator for Ring's snitch app (Neighbors), offered her sincere condolences to everyone involved:

"Unfortunate that none were apprehended this time around…"

Yeah, it sucks no one was out stealing packages from doorsteps. It would have made for a great demo reel when pitching Aurora residences doorbell cameras and their chance to participate in spying on their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances.

The documents also show Amazon coordinating most of the operation, starting with a training session provided by the maker of the GPS devices, all the way through to its final cut approval on Aurora PD press releases about the sting. They also show the police department asked citizens to be a part of the Ring-enabled surveillance network expansion project, doing business under the delightful name of "Operation Grinch Grab."

When reached by Motherboard for comment, officer Wells-Longshore said that the Aurora Police Department does not have access to a Ring law enforcement neighborhood portal, but they asked residents for Ring doorbell footage access, and offered to give some residents free Ring cameras.

Sure, you can take a free camera and refuse to grant law enforcement access to footage, but what kind of a citizen would do that? Probably the kind that won't pick up litter and put it in the trash when asked to by a uniformed officer. These free Ring cameras come with an implied access license few people will feel comfortable violating.

This sting operation's lack of success won't discourage other law enforcement agencies from partnering with Amazon in the future. Amazon has made it very clear it has zero problems selling surveillance tech to law enforcement, even while under the Congressional microscope. With Ring, it's expanding law enforcement's surveillance reach with cheap-to-free cameras that appeal to homeowners' pocketbooks and peace of mind.

If this all seems a bit too cozy, that's because it is. And what appears to be little more than an easy way to capture package thieves on tape is actually a convenient way for the government to keep an eye on people's comings and goings, as well as who they socialize with. For now, it's all about footage of crimes. But the access point is already there and the camera is always rolling.

Filed Under: aurora, colorado, package thiefs, ring doorbells, surveillance, usps
Companies: amazon, ring