Ring Coyness About Adding Facial Recognition Tech To Its Cameras Doesn't Extend To Its Marketing Materials

from the unreasonable-suspicion dept

Ring may say it's not getting into the facial recognition business, but its internal documents say otherwise. The company has a head of facial recognition tech in its Ukraine office. And its answers to Senator Edward Markey's questions make it clear Ring hasn't ruled out adding this tech to its doorbell cameras. Specifically, the company said it had no plans at the present but was always looking to "innovate" to meet "customer demand."

Documents obtained by The Intercept show Ring is still "innovating," even if there's no apparent customer demand for facial recognition tech. Sam Biddle has the details:

Ring, Amazon's crimefighting surveillance camera division, has crafted plans to use facial recognition software and its ever-expanding network of home security cameras to create AI-enabled neighborhood “watch lists,” according to internal documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The planning materials envision a seamless system whereby a Ring owner would be automatically alerted when an individual deemed “suspicious” was captured in their camera’s frame, something described as a “suspicious activity prompt.”

In the mockup seen by The Intercept, "suspicious" apparently translates to "shabbily dressed man." This person is shown walking past a garage-mounted camera (which the company says users shouldn't point at public areas like streets and sidewalks) with the alert "This person appears to be acting suspicious."

Dress better, citizens. Otherwise, your image might be uploaded to Ring's snitch app, Neighbors, where local randos can collectively gin up fear and sic the cops on you. Nowhere in the document does Ring define what triggers its "suspicion" sensors.

Here's where the facial recognition tech is pitched but never named specifically:

A third potentially invasive feature referenced in the Ring documents is the addition of a “proactive suspect matching” feature, described in a manner that strongly suggests the ability to automatically identify people suspected of criminal behavior — again, whether by police, Ring customers, or both is unclear — based on algorithmically monitored home surveillance footage. Ring is already very much in the business of providing — with a degree of customer consent — valuable, extrajudicial information to police through its police portal. A “proactive” approach to information sharing could mean flagging someone who happens to cross into a Ring video camera’s frame based on some cross-referenced list of “suspects,”

Ring may not have facial recognition tech built in (yet), but plenty of police departments utilize or have access to this software. Any images or footage shared with law enforcement agencies -- either voluntarily by Ring owners or acquired with a subpoena from the company -- can be subjected to facial recognition tech and placed on a Ring-enabled "watchlist."

Ring remains mostly a dump pipe in this scenario, but its aggressive marketing to law enforcement suggests it wants its 600+ government partners to take advantage of the tools they have on hand to make the most of footage cops are invited to download and hold onto indefinitely. Ring can then remain in a state of plausible deniability when being questioned by critics and/or Congress while still giving hundreds of law enforcement agencies all the reason they need to act as Ring brand ambassadors.

Filed Under: doorbells, facial recognition, ring, ring doorbells
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