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Thursday, January 21, 2021

Amazon and Ring under fire after revealing authorities can keep homeowner videos forever

The video doorbell company Ring is taking some heat after it revealed that authorities can keep homeowners’ videos forever and share them with any party they choose. 

Hundreds of police forces in the U.S. have formed partnerships with the company, who says the technology can help tackle crimes like burglary and trespassing. When Senator Edward J. Markey wrote to Ring’s owner, Amazon, to ask how the footage taken by its doorbell videos is used and how civil liberties are being protected, the company’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman responded.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah, that's what we need, everybody helping big bro surveillance state.

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  2. I've been blocked for using an AdBlocker but this link is blocking a story they copied off The Washington Post. Mixed ethics.

    BTW The notify feature isn't working for your site Kenny.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What do video doorbells, Social Media and the mid-Pacific Ocean all have in common? Don't dive in and you won't drown.

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  4. I had the line on installing spying shit in your own house from the git go. And people Pay to have the shit installed.

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  5. Ed Markey, that champion of liberty from Massholechusetts, who in his 40+ years in CONgress and the Senate has not ONE PIECE OF LEGISLATION authored by himself enacted. Yup we should listen to THAT GUY.

    Nemo

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  6. Regarding AdBlocking restrictions - Brave Browser lets you turn off those scripts that are stopping you from reading the article (Settings/Shields & Privacy/Block Scripts). It is a bit of a pain because you need to flip the switch back when done, but it does let you read some sited that you could previously could not. FYI, to comment this site I had to turn scripts back on

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  7. WC,
    I have a ring video cam on my front entryway. I don;t have to share it with Law enforcement and even if I choose to not share, the Ring company in under no obligation to force or to view/copy/remove any of my videos on their cloud. I believe in OPSEC and all but, its way more important to know who/what is at my front door, LIVE, anytime day or night and it's come in handy quite a few times. NOLA burb life ya know? If lived at the camp, I would have several RING video cams. Considerably preferable to a trail/game cam. I have to be honest, I'm a very satisfied RING customer.

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    Replies
    1. The video is in Ring servers, and that means that according to the execrable "third party doctrine", it's available to any law enforcement agency that bothers to fill out a subpoena - if Ring even required that much. If you want privacy, don't let your data ever be on anyone else's hard drive, which means don't send it across the internet at all.

      A possible alternative is to encrypt everything, but make sure the keys are only on your own devices, and the files are only decrypted on your own devices. But internet services are often built around snooping on their customers and selling the aggregated data, so they only allow unencrypted customer data.

      Delete
  8. The cameras on my security system are hard-wired to the CPU, making it available to me in person or remotely by logging on through the computer.
    All on VPN.
    Then there's the low-tech, bang-bang high capacity part of the defensive strategy.

    ReplyDelete

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