1984: Thread

[grarpamp]

Cops, TLA's, and Amazon Ring... Partners Abusing Your Privacy
and Secretly Spyveillancing and Databasing the Entire USA


Amazon Ring Video Handed To Police Without Users Consent Sparks
"Surveillance Crisis Of Accountability"

https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markeys-probe-into-amazon-ring-reveals-new-privacy-problems

While people purchase Ring cameras on Amazon and mount them on their
front doors to keep their homes safe, law enforcement agencies use
them without the user's permission, according to a press release
published by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts).

The heading of the press release reads, "Senator Markey's Probe Into
Amazon Ring Reveals New Privacy Problem," highlighting the alarming
access to "the close relationship between Ring and law enforcement,
including the proliferation of policing agencies on the Ring
platform."

Ring, which Amazon bought in 2018, responded to Markey's June letter
and said law enforcement partnerships on its platform had jumped a
staggering five-fold increase since November 2019. The electronic
doorbell company further revealed footage was handed over to police
eleven times this year without the user's consent – under a so-called
"emergency circumstance exception."

    "As my ongoing investigation into Amazon illustrates, it has
become increasingly difficult for the public to move, assemble, and
converse in public without being tracked and recorded," Markey said.

Amazon has an agreement with more than 2,100 police departments
nationwide under the app called "Neighbors." Police can use the app to
request videos. The lawmaker warned:

    "We cannot accept this as inevitable in our country. Increasing
law enforcement reliance on private surveillance creates a crisis of
accountability, and I am particularly concerned that biometric
surveillance could become central to the growing web of surveillance
systems that Amazon and other powerful tech companies are responsible
for."

Lawmakers have previously said Amazon funded a lobbying campaign to
relax privacy protections in more than two dozen states while
harvesting vast amounts of sensitive data on its customers.

    "Amazon shamefully launched a campaign to squash privacy
legislation while its devices listen to & watch our lives. This is now
the classic Big Tech move: deploy money & armies of lobbyists to fight
meaningful reforms in the shadows but claim to support them publicly,"
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) tweeted late last year.

Politico pointed out Congress is discussing a federal data privacy
law, though it won't cover Ring sharing data with police.

During the pandemic, Ring conducted a 45-day pilot program to live
stream Ring cameras in Jackson, Mississippi, to test a surveillance
camera network from people's homes.

Ring effectively creates the most extensive corporate-owned,
civilian-installed surveillance network the US has ever seen. This is
very troubling.