Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Amazon Ring does not fight crime

NBC News: “Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn’t much of a crime fighter. Hundreds of police departments have signed agreements with Ring to gain access to footage filmed on home surveillance cameras….Since 2018, Ring has signed up more than 800 law enforcement agencies as “partners,” offering them access to video footage recorded by its millions of customers’ internet-connected cameras across the U.S. through an app called Neighbors. Ring promises to “make neighborhoods safer” by deterring and helping to solve crimes, citing its own research that says an installation of its doorbell cameras reduces burglaries by more than 50 percent. But an NBC News Investigation has found — after interviews with 40 law enforcement agencies in eight states that have partnered with Ring for at least three months — that there is little concrete evidence to support the claim. Three agencies said the ease with which the public can share Ring videos means officers spend time reviewing clips of non-criminal issues such as racoons and petty disagreements between neighbors. Others noted that the flood of footage generated by Ring cameras rarely led to positive identifications of suspects, let alone arrests…”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.