Amazon's Ring says that it receives some real-time 911 call data, including addresses, from police, which helps it curate crime news posts for its Neighbors app
here's what it's like Louise Matsakis / Wired : Cops Are Offering Ring Doorbell Cameras in Exchange for Info Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing : Amazon's secret deals with local cops give them access to realtime 911 data for use in scary alerts sent to Ring owners Isobel Asher Hamilton / Business Insider : Amazon-owned home security firm Ring has access to real-time 911 call data Georgina Torbet / Engadget : Amazon's Ring wants to collect information from 911 calls socalTECH.com : Report: Amazon's Ring Collecting 911 Data BeauHD / Slashdot : Cops Are Giving Amazon's Ring Your Real-Time 911 Caller Data Tweets: Dave Maass / @maassive : Fresno Sheriff spokesperson admits that if a Ring camera owner doesn't want to share video, they'll just go to Amazon, and they'll turn it over. https://www.govtech.com/... One Ring / @hypervisible : “Cities are paying Ring so that residents can enter a private, mostly unregulated surveillance ecosystem that includes cameras both outside and inside their homes.” 🤬🤬🤬 https://www.vice.com/... @onekade : Some cities are providing Amazon with live access to 911 call data, including the home addresses of people who call 911. Amazon can then use this information to stoke fear on its Neighbors app, which in turn can generate more Ring sales. Dystopian. https://gizmodo.com/... Caroline Haskins / @carolineha_ : NEW: At least 15 cities, probably more, are using taxpayer money to subsidize massive discounts on Ring surveillance cameras. These discount programs—which funnel public money to Ring/Amazon—cost upwards of $100,000. https://www.vice.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : You may recall in April we learned Amazon was “hiring journalists to report on crime.” This is what for. I obtained a list of crimes they will push out to app users (burglary, vehicle break-in, theft) and which ones they wont (assault, rape, “dead person") https://gizmodo.com/... https://twitter.com/... John S. Wilson / @johnwilson : Considering how sensitive people are becoming to data usage, I'm confused why Amazon would wade deeper into this type of behavior without being transparent. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Keys / @matthewkeyslive : Your Ring camera might be hijacked by Amazon for a new “community news” feature, and there might not be anything you can do about it. What's worse, the local police department may help them invade your privacy. https://gizmodo.com/... Victor Gevers / @0xdude : This scope creep of Ring is becoming a bit worrisome. When consumer device are by used for surveillance, then it is just a mouse click away from mass surveillance. Is the US going to follow China with this kind of practices? https://twitter.com/... @sidneyfussell : Amazon Ring is slowly but surely being revealed as exactly what we said it was all along https://gizmodo.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : Some police departments are giving Amazon-owned Ring 911 call data, including addresses and GPS coordinates, in real time. If you're worried about your personal privacy, this is a terrible precedent. https://gizmodo.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : SCOOP: Ring (Amazon's home security company) is siphoning real-time 911 caller data provided by police to curate its app's ‘crime news’ content, according to docs we obtained. Ring confirmed this includes location data, which it obfuscates. https://gizmodo.com/... Nathan Bernhardt / @jonbernhardt : I for one think its good and cool that Amazon is incrementally putting together a corporate NSA https://twitter.com/... Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : *spits out coffee* https://gizmodo.com/...