All but two U.S. states – Montana and Wyoming – now have police or fire departments participating in Amazon’s Ring network, which allows police to ask users for images of their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations, the Financial Times reported, the Ring figures show that more than 1,189 departments joined the program in 2020, for a total of 2,014. This represents a sharp increase from the 703 departments in 2019 and only 40 in 2018.
The FT reports that local law enforcement departments on the platform requested videos from Ring for a total of more than 22,335 incidents in 2020. Ring’s disclosure data also shows that law enforcement made about 1,900 requests – such as subpoenas, court orders search and court orders – for footage or data from ring cameras, even after the device owner denied the request. Amazon responded to those requests 57 percent of the time, their numbers show, up from 68 percent in 2019.
Privacy advocates have raised questions about how Ring data is used and made available to law enforcement officials. The Ring’s Neighbors app, which allows Ring users to share videos with others nearby, has been criticized for containing racist comments and reports. And a report of NBC News Last February, we found that filming the ring was not very useful in solving crimes. When useful, Ring footage was used primarily for low-level nonviolent property crimes (like stealing a Nintendo switch).
Ring started adding support for end-to-end encryption to its cameras earlier this month.