Ring doorbell cameras will soon no longer allow police officers and departments to request footage from users via its neighborhood watch app, Neighbors.
The Amazon-owned company shared in a blog post that it’s planning to shut down its Request for Assistance, or RFA, tool from the Neighbors app this week, which allowed officers to request and potentially receive video footage from the cameras — without the user’s consent, per Fox News.
According to CNN, law enforcement must now submit a formal request, such as a warrant or subpoena, to obtain user footage from Ring cameras through the Neighbors app.
The decision isn’t entirely exclusionary for officers, as Eric Kuhn, the head of Neighbors, stated in the company’s blog post, “Public safety agencies like fire and police departments can still use the Neighbors app to share helpful safety tips, updates, and community events.”
Ring has not provided a reason for the change, per The Associated Press. However, Kuhn did share that the decision helps to align closer with the company’s goal to connect communities.
What has commenced from RFA
Per CNN, Ring faced years of criticism over its video sharing practices with local and nationwide authorities, alleging the cameras have contributed to invasion of privacy and racial profiling.
As reported by The New York Times, Request For Assistance was implemented to Neighbors in June 2021 as a transparent tool to provide users with information about local authorities’ use of Ring cameras. Before the change, police could send private email requests to Ring users in an area of interest.
In 2022, Amazon released a letter by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, sharing that in the same year, over 2,100 law enforcement agencies used the Neighbors app — mentioning 11 instances where a user’s consent was not requested, per The New York Times.
Amazon’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, shared in the letter, “In each instance, Ring made a good-faith determination that there was an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to a person requiring disclosure of information without delay,” via The New York Times.
In the summer of 2023, Ring agreed to a $5.8 million settlement with the FTC due to allegations of the company allowing employees and contractors to have access to users’ videos, in addition to security measures that the FTC said failed to protect consumers from hackers, according to AP.
What has been said about the decision?
Kuhn, in addition to sharing about Neighbor’s implementation of a few video-sharing platforms — Ring Moments and Best of Ring — shared about the policy changes, “As we look to the future of the Neighbors app, we’re excited for what’s to come, and to see all the ways customers will continue to connect and share with each other and their communities.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation made a recent statement acquired by The New York Times, speaking about the policy change:
“This is a victory in a long fight, not just against blanket police surveillance, but also against a culture in which private, for-profit companies build special tools to allow law enforcement to more easily access companies’ users and their data — all of which ultimately undermine their customers’ trust.”