Today’s announcement by Amazon Ring marks a major shift in its relationship with law enforcement agencies and their access to user data.
“We are pleased to confirm that Amazon Ring will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage from Ring users,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia.
Years ago, after facing backlash and criticism from organizations such as EFF, Ring made changes to its policy regarding police requests for user footage. Instead of automatically sending requests to user email inboxes, they switched to a system where police had to publicly post requests on Ring’s Neighbors app. While this was a step in the right direction, the company still had a history of cozy relationships with law enforcement and mishandling of user data (leading to a settlement with the FTC). EFF believes that Ring should also enable end-to-end encryption by default and turn off default audio collection, as it was found that audio was being collected from greater distances than initially thought. They also remain skeptical of law enforcement and Ring’s ability to determine what constitutes an emergency and warrants the release of footage without user consent or a warrant.
Today’s news from Amazon states that they will be discontinuing their controversial tool called Request for Assistance (RFA), which allowed police and fire departments to request doorbell video through Ring’s Neighbors app.
“Public safety agencies can still use the Neighbors app to share safety tips, updates, and community events, but will no longer have access to the RFA tool for requesting and receiving video footage,” explained Neighbors app head, Eric Kuhn, in a blog post.
“Public safety agency posts will remain public and available for users to view on the Neighbors app feed and on the agency’s profile.”
Privacy advocates have long been concerned about this feature, especially as Amazon made police requests public in its biannual transparency report for 2021. The company saw a 65% increase in legal requests from agencies, raising red flags for many public officials. In 2019, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey even wrote an open letter to then-CEO Jeff Bezos expressing concerns about Ring’s collection and storage of user footage. He also brought up the potential for discrimination through the use of facial recognition software.
Ring has assured that they only respond to urgent law enforcement requests for information in cases of imminent danger or physical injury. These requests must be accompanied by a completed emergency request form and undergo a good-faith determination to meet the standard of imminent danger as defined by federal law.
Today’s policy change is a significant step towards better protection of user privacy and a win for privacy advocates.
