MARK43, Smart Cameras Surveillance Police State "CRIME PREDICTING TECHNOLOGY"

Police across the country have been giving away "Ring doorbells" or subsidizing them at a heavy discount

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Amazon's helping police build a surveillance network with Ring doorbells

Its popular Ring smart doorbells mean more cameras on more doorsteps, where surveillance footage used to be rare.

If you're walking in Bloomfield, New Jersey, there's a good chance you're being recorded. But it's not a corporate office or warehouse security camera capturing the footage -- it's likely a Ring doorbell made by Amazon .

While residential neighborhoods aren't usually lined with security cameras , the smart doorbell's popularity has essentially created private surveillance networks powered by Amazon and promoted by police departments.

Police departments across the country, from major cities like Houston to towns with fewer than 30,000 people, have offered free or discounted Ring doorbells to citizens, sometimes using taxpayer funds to pay for Amazon's products. While Ring owners are supposed to have a choice on providing police footage, in some giveaways, police require recipients to turn over footage when requested.

Ring said Tuesday that it would start cracking down on those strings attached.

"Ring customers are in control of their videos, when they decide to share them and whether or not they want to purchase a recording plan. Ring has donated devices to Neighbor's Law Enforcement partners for them to provide to members of their communities," Ring said in a statement. "Ring does not support programs that require recipients to subscribe to a recording plan or that footage from Ring devices be shared as a condition for receiving a donated device. We are actively working with partners to ensure this is reflected in their programs."

While more surveillance footage in neighborhoods could help police investigate crimes, the sheer number of cameras run by Amazon's Ring business raises questions about privacy involving both law enforcement and tech giants. You might recognize Amazon as a place to get cheap deals with one-day shipping, but critics have pointed out the retail giant's ventures with law enforcement, like offering facial recognition tools.
Every area of town we have, there are some Ring cameras.
Captain Vincent Kerney, detective bureau commander, Bloomfield Police Department

But those cameras benefit several groups: Police can gather more video footage, while Amazon can charge new Ring owners up to $3 a month for subscription fees on the smart doorbells. Residents, meanwhile, get some peace of mind, particularly with the Neighbors app, essentially a social network sharing camera feeds.

"Our township is now entirely covered by cameras," said Captain Vincent Kerney, detective bureau commander of the Bloomfield Police Department. "Every area of town we have, there are some Ring cameras."

Bloomfield's police department did not receive any free cameras from Ring, but the camera was already popular in the town of roughly 50,000 people.

More than 50 local police departments across the US have partnered with Ring over the last two years, lauding how the Amazon-owned product allows them to access security footage in areas that typically don't have cameras -- on suburban doorsteps.

But privacy advocates argue this partnership gives law enforcement an unprecedented amount of surveillance.

"What we have here is a perfect marriage between law enforcement and one of the world's biggest companies creating conditions for a society that few people would want to be a part of," said Mohammad Tajsar, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

Ring also referred to this blog post on how it handles privacy concerns with police partnerships.

"Our customers and Neighbors app users place their trust in us to help protect their homes and communities and we take that responsibility incredibly seriously," the company said.
How Neighbors works

Amazon bought Ring in 2018 for a reported $1 billion, and the maker of smart doorbells and security cameras helped expand the retail giant's smart homes push.

That happened amid a surging consumer interest in newly internet-connected devices, from lightbulbs and TVs to security cameras. Outside of Amazon, companies like Nest, which Google bought for $3.2 billion in 2014, also offer security cameras for homes. Strategy Analytics expected more than 3.4 million video doorbells would be sold in 2018.

Ring had been courting local police departments even before Amazon acquired it. Police are mostly interested in Ring's Neighbors app, a free download that serves as a place where people can share, view and comment on crime information in their neighborhood, as well as upload video clips from Ring doorbells. Then police court the public to buy Ring.

"We're encouraging residents of Mountain Brook to purchase that type of technology and work with the app," said Ted Cook, the police chief in Mountain Brook, Alabama. "We see it as trying to create a digital neighborhood watch."

When police partner with Ring, they have access to a law enforcement dashboard, where they can geofence areas and request footage filmed at specific times. Law enforcement can only get footage from the app if residents choose to send it. Otherwise, police need to subpoena Ring.

Police said the app has helped them solve crimes since residents usually send in footage of thieves on their steps stealing packages, or a suspicious car driving through the neighborhood.
neighbors-app-composite

The Neighbors app allows people to post videos and crime alerts. Police can request Ring footage through this app. Amazon/Ring

Those residents can feel more secure becaue the program offers a direct line to police.

"Someone who is investing in this Ring is obviously concerned about their safety and their property," said Eric Piza, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "It seems like a fair trade-off. They are probably perfectly fine with police being able to look at the street view outside their house."

Despite its benefits, the relationship between police departments and Ring raises concerns about surveillance and privacy, as Amazon is working with law enforcement to blanket communities with cameras.

Ring has had its own privacy concerns. The Information reported last December that workers in Ukraine watched videos on its public app without customers knowing. In a statement to TechCrunch following the report, the company said, "we take the privacy and security of our customers' personal information extremely seriously."

"Essentially, we're creating a culture where everybody is the nosy neighbor looking out the window with their binoculars," said Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It is creating this giant pool of data that allows the government to analyze our every move, whether or not a crime is being committed."
Put a Ring on it

On a heat map of Bloomfield, there are hardly any spots in the New Jersey township out of sight of a Ring camera.

The smart doorbells were already popular within the community, Kerney said, and it made sense to partner with Ring for the law enforcement dashboard. Now, on top of those cameras being on seemingly every block, police could request footage from residents just from a tap on a phone.
bloomfield-heatmap

A heat map of Bloomfield showing that Ring cameras are everywhere in the New Jersey town. The closer it is to red, the more cameras there are. Bloomfield Police

It's a massive jump from how much surveillance footage the Bloomfield police department had access to before Ring came into town.

Kerney said he had started a volunteer surveillance registration in 2017. Any place that had security cameras could sign up and provide footage to police.

There were about 442 places that registered, Kerney recalled. It was mostly businesses, since many private homes didn't have security cameras then. But it's a drop in the bucket compared with the network Ring has.

"There's probably 10 times as many Ring cameras as we have anything else," he said.

Part of the massive adoption is due to how popular products like Ring and Google's Nest have made surveillance systems. They're not just for businesses anymore: The market for smart home security cameras is expected to surpass $9.7 billion by 2023.

"Generally, most people don't have big-time surveillance systems in their home," Kerney said. "But something simple like Ring, where you just plug it in? People will go for that."

Police departments are piggybacking on Ring's network to build out their surveillance networks.

In Hampton, Virginia, police received 15 free Ring cameras after partnering with the company in March. The police department is still figuring out what neighborhoods they're going to distribute those cameras to.

Part of that includes working with the crime analysis unit to determine which blocks could use these cameras the most, said Ashley Jenrette, a Hampton police public information officer.
Paying the price

Ring helps police avoid roadblocks for surveillance technology, whether a lack of funding or the public's concerns about privacy.

"If the police department had to go and create a plan of where it was going to put all the cameras in the neighborhood, how much it was going to cost, and take it to the city council, maybe there would be some debate," the EFF's Maass said. "There's a reason we push for ordinances that require police department seek city council approval before they acquire any surveillance technology."

Multiple cities have laws requiring a public process to debate how police use and buy surveillance technology. Community activists fight back against tools like facial recognition and automated license plate readers.

But when police and Amazon convince private residents to buy these cameras, it's essentially circumventing that process while saving the city money. Ring cameras can cost between $99 and $500.

"We don't have security cameras citywide," Cook said. "Essentially, this has the ability of creating security camera technology citywide. We're asking citizens to participate, to purchase it on their own."

Some police departments do more than just ask. Police in Indiana, New Jersey, California and other states have offered discounts for Ring cameras, sometimes up to $125. In some cases, those discounts come from taxpayer money.

"Part of the problem is that the public is financially subsidizing invasions of their own privacy in their communities when they do this," Tajsar said.

In April, the city of Hammond, Indiana, announced it had $37,500 in funds to subsidize Ring devices -- half of which came from Ring. The other $18,750 came from the city, said Steve Kellogg, Hammond police's public information officer.

The city had 500 cameras, and in about a week, they were all sold. The city government ran more discounted programs, Kellogg said, putting out more than 600 Ring cameras in the city.

"There will be more cameras on the streets," Kellogg said. "It's really a no-brainer."

Other cities will do giveaways, either in raffles or as rewards for crime tips, as the Southern California city of El Monte did.

While police need to ask for permission to get footage, a giveaway in Houston ensured that law enforcement would get any videos it needed. In its giveaway post last March, Houston police wrote in its requirements that winners would agree to give Houston police access to the cameras when it's requested.

"This model is the most disturbing because they're basically commandeering people's homes as surveillance outposts for law enforcement," Tajsar said.

Houston police didn't respond to requests for comment. Ring said that it doesn't support this model and that it was reaching out to police partners to make sure this wasn't a requirement for Ring giveaways.

It's unlikely that police departments will run out of cameras. In several cities, for every 20 people who sign up for the app, Ring donates one camera. It's why some police departments have been pushing for more residents to sign up.

Police promoting the cameras also helps Amazon's profits. Even when Ring is giving the cameras away for free or providing subsidies, it quickly finds a return on its investment.

You don't have to have a Ring subscription, but it's the only way you can store footage recorded from the camera. The cheapest plan starts at $3 a month. Even when Amazon donated $18,750 to Hammond's subsidy program, it could make all of that back in less than a year with 600 new subscriptions.

"As policing becomes more technology-driven, we have this new issue of police acting in the interest of commercial enterprises," Piza said.
Combining tech

Even though Bloomfield is peppered with Ring cameras, people haven't been flooding police with footage from their doorbells, Kerney said.

He's sent about 10 requests in the last two weeks, tied to thefts, burglaries and stolen cars, but most of them have gone unanswered, the detective bureau commander said.

When people in the Neighbors app aren't being responsive, police will take to the streets and start knocking on doors asking for footage in person. People are a lot more cooperative when an officer is at their doorsteps asking for Ring footage, he said. Civil advocates argue that people don't really have a choice.

"You change how you drive when you see a cop driving next to you. What if a cop shows up at your door and asks you for something?" Tajsar said. "Even if you're the biggest civil libertarian, you will feel compelled to turn that footage over."

And Ring isn't limited to Amazon's own technology, more tech-savvy police departments have found.

While Ring faced backlash last December when it was considering facial recognition for the doorbell cameras, police are capable of using the footage provided by residents with their own algorithms.

Depending on how the Ring camera is set up, it can capture motion on the streets, like cars passing by. Kellogg noted that Hammond uses automated license plate readers and could use footage from Ring cameras to track down vehicles.

Police can enter details on a car captured in Ring footage, search in the license plate reader system, and figure out the car's owner and address, he added.

"That's something that's unheard of," Kellogg said. "With Ring now picking up any motion in vehicles, maybe we won't catch someone ringing the doorbell, but if it drives by, Ring turns on and captures that vehicle."

Residents may not be aware of that when they turn the footage over. The requests for Ring videos often come in the Neighbors app just asking for evidence related to reported incidents, with no details on what the clips will be used for.

"If the public are going to share this footage with the police, they need to know what it's going to be used for," Maass said.

Cleveland has spent at least $7 million to dot the city with about 1,500 surveillance cameras since 2007

It’s poised to invest nearly $4.7 million for 300 more and fix or replace nearly 40 that are old or damaged

Unlike some other cities, Cleveland officials have refused to share with taxpayers two key pieces of information:

where the cameras are, and how they’re used. Some have facial recognition and other capabilities that, if used, could compromise privacy.

“The cameras are paid for by the public,” Council member Michael Polensek told The Marshall Project. “When they go up, everybody knows where they are at. What’s the secret?”

The city has no policy against sharing camera locations, said Karrie Howard, director of public safety. He said the city is prioritizing safety of residents over releasing the information.

“Releasing the locations and capabilities of the cameras has the potential to compromise their effectiveness and will hinder investigations,” Howard said in response to emailed questions.

The stance is at odds with new Mayor Justin Bibb’s commitment to greater transparency and accountability, particularly with the police department.

A spokeswoman for Bibb did not respond to specific follow-up questions, other than noting the mayor was aware of Howard’s responses.

Cleveland still lacks policies aimed at balancing transparency, privacy, civil rights and community safety — policies that exist in other large metropolitan areas. Camera locations in places like Baltimore and Oakland, California, are disclosed routinely and, increasingly, citizen panels vet how police use surveillance technology.

The absence of an open dialogue about how that technology will be used, what information is being collected and retained, and how it would be monitored for misuse seems inconsistent with the spirit of agreements between Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a report released in May by the city’s Community Police Commission. The commission, which was created to increase oversight and engage residents as part of a federal consent decree, pointed to a lack of vetted policies describing how the tools could be used constitutionally.

“It is surprising that with this administration we aren’t seeing some greater push for transparency on this stuff,” said Brian Ray, who directs the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. “I would have thought this administration would be a little different.”

Ray, who served as an advisor for the community police commission report, said it’s critical that residents know where cameras are and what law enforcement is using them for — at least to track potential discrimination in how they are used by police.

The issue of transparency was also raised recently by Cleveland’s consent decree monitoring team. A new report notes the department had yet to provide a draft of a policy on how it would release records, data and information to the public. The monitoring team called such policies “an important part of police legitimacy and demonstrations of transparency for the community.”

Though Bibb campaigned heavily on both transparency and police accountability, he has yet to say how he’ll balance the two.

Bibb and police brass announced in May that the city would expand its reliance on police surveillance technology by using a $355,400 state grant to buy two drones, 100 license plate reader cameras and five portable surveillance cameras. The concerns about transparency, the lack of policies and privacy issues were not addressed.

Council members, including those who enthusiastically support the use of cameras to deter crime or apprehend suspects, have questioned city officials about camera locations and surveillance capabilities.
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Council member Joe Jones publicly pressed for information on the use of facial recognition technology during an April committee meeting.

The cameras can be programmed to recognize things — man, woman, dog, car, truck — and to match faces against existing databases, Froilan Roy C. Fernando, the city’s chief innovation and technology officer, explained during that committee meeting.

“And are we deploying the facial recognition piece?” Jones asked.

Howard cut in: “Councilman, what I would like is, if possible, if we could speak on the capability of our camera system privately.”

The city has also denied public records requests for camera locations. Last year, Cleveland Documenters, a community-based journalism group, requested the locations of more than 1,200 cameras that were placed around the city as part of the “Safe Smart CLE” initiative.

The city refused and said the locations were exempt from public records law as “specific confidential investigatory techniques or procedures or specific investigatory work product.”

Officials did release a breakdown of the number of cameras placed in each ward and have said many of the cameras are placed near recreation centers and main corridors with existing infrastructure to support the cameras.

Officials told council members that neighborhoods with higher instances of crime often have fewer cameras. That’s because the cost of camera installation in neighborhoods that lack fiber-optic cable or advanced wireless networks can cost 10 times as much because the infrastructure needs to be built.

Council member Charles Slife, who sits on the Public Safety Committee, said Howard's reasons for keeping the cameras secret make no sense.

“I don't get it,” Slife said. “For me, the responses have defied logic.”

Polensek said residents he spoke with are overwhelmingly in favor of using surveillance cameras and want more in areas where crime is higher, businesses are targeted or illegal dumping is prevalent. He said he’s heard no fears about privacy issues or rights violations, but does believe information on how the city uses the cameras should be public.

City Council President Blaine Griffin, who for more than a decade responded to violent crimes while directing the city’s community relations board, said he understands the trepidation police have about revealing the locations of the cameras.

In Griffin’s view, the cameras are more investigatory tools, like wiretaps used to monitor drug dealing or devices to track homicide suspects, and less to prevent or deter crime.

“The challenge is making sure that you have transparency but also not tipping off the people you have surveillance on,” Griffin said.

The city, however, should share the types of cameras it purchases and what technologies it uses, Griffin said, because some — like license plate readers — can be misused or weaponized.

City officials’ stance on surveillance technologies hasn’t been tested legally.

“It's common. I doubt it's legal,” said Brian Hofer, chair and executive director of Secure Justice, an Oakland, California, nonprofit that fights what the organization views as abuses of power and overreach by governments and corporations, particularly when it comes to surveillance technology.

Hofer, who chairs Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, has worked with more than 20 cities to vet contracts, create policies or legislation or form commissions to oversee the use of surveillance technology by law enforcement.

The work isn’t about banning the use of all surveillance technologies, he said, but about residents understanding how they work and having a say in how they are used.

In Oakland, and other jurisdictions where Hofer has helped create technology-vetting frameworks, residents will often be okay with controversial or powerful technology used in limited situations, such as solving a violent crime. But they won't ever want that same technology to be used to investigate a petty theft, he said.

If residents don't know the specifications or where these things are being located, he said, it’s impossible to really make that informed decision of what meets community norms or standards.

Hofer has encountered pushback from police, who say that being too transparent could allow people to disable or evade the technology.

“Do you really think that the smash-and-grab guy is watching city council agendas and downloading your documents?” he said. “It's just not happening.”

Cities such as Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., use camera networks and are routinely more transparent about locations or policies.

For years, Baltimore has maintained a network of hundreds of closed-circuit security cameras. Anyone with a smartphone or computer can search a city website to find the location of each of its hundreds of cameras.
A gray and white map shows locations of closed-circuit television cameras marked with blue circles.

A map showing the location of closed-circuit television cameras used by the Baltimore Police Department. The public can find the locations on a city website. Screenshot of the City of Baltimore site

Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department began posting closed-circuit television cameras in neighborhood locations in 2006. Each camera location is listed on the police department’s website.

In 2021, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police updated its nine-page policy for the “Public Safety Camera Program.” The city originally created the policy, accessible online, in 2016.

Pittsburgh, like Cleveland, does not disclose camera locations.

Pittsburgh does, however, have a city law that requires some transparency — each camera is paired with a street level sign telling residents a camera is in use.

The Los Angeles Police Department has built in layers of transparency and oversight for how the police department uses and shares information about cameras and other surveillance technologies. That’s partly due to its consent decree, which helped transform the LAPD from a militaristic agency to one that is focused on community policing, Los Angeles Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff told The Marshall Project.

Critics who are concerned about privacy abuses don’t like some policies, he acknowledged, but the policies are available for public review.

On Aug. 30, the Los Angeles Police Commission approved a new contract for up to $3 million to upgrade its existing network of 214 surveillance cameras posted across the city.

During a presentation, Office of Constitutional Policing & Policy Cmdr. Steve Lurie told the commission that 104 cameras are mounted at intersections and another 110 are mounted on city buildings.

No facial-recognition software is used with the camera system, Lurie said. During the public meeting, he also presented a geographic breakdown that showed the street locations among police districts. Lurie told The Marshall Project in some cases, locations are not disclosed for investigative reasons.

Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore told the commission any new installation location is subject to public review by the Los Angeles Police Commission, which recently adopted new rules for how the city can use an array of available crime fighting technologies.

Under its new policy, the LAPD must submit a detailed proposal to the commission before deploying a particular technology, spelling out whether any data will be collected on people and for how long it will be kept, any infringements on people’s privacy and civil rights, and what safeguards are in place to guard against misuse, the Los Angeles Times reported.

LAPD is also required to report annually to the commission about its compliance to the policy.

In Cleveland, the Community Police Commission’s report recommended the city move toward a similar vetting strategy and public disclosure of a wide range of surveillance technologies, which include software or electronic devices and data systems designed to collect or retain information on people.

“How can you gain the trust of any community for anything or other law enforcement agencies, frankly, with decades-old practices of keeping everything shielded?” Soboroff said. “The idea of going opposite of the best practices in a business that is built on perception, trust and transparency is wrong.”

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/10/29/amazon-ring-doorbell-cams-police-home-security/3987350002/

https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/nation-world/amazon-handed-ring-footage-to-police-without-user-permission/507-cdd3287e-9a04-4724-8b0d-79a195728199

https://www.masslive.com/police-fire/2020/02/whos-watching-you-unregulated-facial-recognition-technology-has-many-massachusetts-communities-pressing-pause-to-protect-civil-liberties.html

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