Amazon Ring Cashes In On Techno-Authoritarianism And Mass Surveillance
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff isback at the helmof the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is thesurveillance-first-privacy-lastapproach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-stream access to people's home security devices.
This is a bad, bad step for Ring and the broader public.
Ring is rolling back many of the reforms it's made in the last few years by easing police access to footage from millions of homes in the United States. This is a grave threat to civil liberties in the United States. After all, police have used Ring footage tospyon protestors, and obtained footagewithout a warrant or consent of the user. It is easy to imagine that law enforcement officials will use their renewed access to Ring information tofind people who have had abortionsor track down people forimmigration enforcement.
Siminoff has announced in a memo seen byBusiness Insiderthat the company will now be reimagined from the ground up to be AI first"-whatever that means for a home security camera that lets you see who is ringing your doorbell. We fear that this may signal the introduction of video analytics orfacerecognitionto an already problematic surveillance device.
It was also reported that employees at Ring will have to showproof that they use AIin order to get promoted.
Not to be undone with new bad features, they are also planning on rolling back some of the necessary reforms Ring has made: namelypartnering with Axonto build a new tool that would allow police to request Ring footage directly from users, and also allow users to consent to letting police livestream directly from their device.
After years of serving as theeyesandearsof police, the company was compelled by public pressure to make a number of necessary changes. They introducedend-to-end encryption, they ended theirformal partnerships with policewhich were anethical minefield, and theyended their toolthat facilitated police requests for footage directly to customers. Now they are pivoting back to being a tool of mass surveillance.
Why now? It is hard to believe the company is betraying the trust of its millions of customers in the name of safety" when violent crime in the United States is reachingnear-historically low levels. It's probably not about their customers-theFTC had to compelRing to take its users' privacy seriously.
No, this is most likely about Ring cashing in on the rising tide of techno-authoritarianism, that is, authoritarianism aided by surveillance tech. Too many tech companies want to profit from our shrinking liberties. Google likewise recentlyended an old ethical commitmentthat prohibited it from profiting off of surveillance and warfare. Companies are locking down billion-dollar contracts by selling their products to the defense sector or police.
Shame on Ring.
Originally posted to EFF's Deeplinks blog.