Amazon’s Ring video doorbell company has announced that it will stop allowing police to request users’ doorbell video footage through its neighborhood watch app.
In a recent blog post, Ring said its has halted the “Request for Assistance” tool, which permitted law enforcement to solicit users’ footage in their neighborhoods via a publicly accessible post on the Neighbors app.
Eric Kuhn, head of Neighbors, clarified in the post, “Public safety agencies like fire and police departments can still use the Neighbors app to share helpful safety tips, updates, and community events. They will no longer be able to use the RFA tool to request and receive video in the app.”
In 2021, Ring made police requests for user footage visible in its Neighbors app, a departure from the previous practice where law enforcement could privately message users to request clips from their smart doorbell cameras.
Despite the change, police can still access Ring video footage through a search warrant or subpoena. In response to a 2022 inquiry from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., regarding its police collaborations, the company disclosed that Ring might furnish footage directly to law enforcement “in cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.”
Ring has long been a subject of privacy debates due to its contentious partnerships with numerous police departments nationwide. Privacy advocates have voiced concerns that the program, along with Ring’s Neighbors app, could exacerbate the risk of racial profiling and transform residents into informants, with limited oversight on how law enforcement employs the material.
