Ring, Amazon’s video doorbell and home security firm is legally allowed to share video requests in “emergencies” without users’ consent.<\/p>\n
In 2022 alone, Amazon’s Ring gave video footage to police in more than ten cases without users’ consent, and sometimes without a warrant.<\/p>\n
Privacy advocates from organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the request for unrestricted video recording only threatens civil liberties.<\/p>\n
“There is no process for a judge or the device owner to determine whether there actually was an emergency. This could easily lead to police abuse: There will always be temptation for police to use it for increasingly less urgent situations,” EFF analysts Jason Kelley and Matthew Guariglia wrote on a blog post.<\/p>\n
Max Isaac, a human resources lawyer at New York University’s Policing Project, said such fears are understandable when worried about a possible breach of users’ privacy.<\/p>\n
“On the one hand, if there really is an emergency, if there’s an armed shooter or if there’s someone who’s absconded with a child and time is of the essence, then disclosing the data without user consent to law enforcement could save lives. Those circumstances are very rare, but I think they exist. Another way of looking at it is, often when you give police an inch, they take a mile,” Isaacs said.<\/p>\n