(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Amazon provided law enforcement agents with Ring doorbell video footage on multiple occasions this year, according to a July 1 letter sent to Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., which was released on Wednesday; the disclosures came despite Ring’s repeated claims that it will not share its footage with police.
Despite these previous statements, the letter Ring sent to Markey informed that Ring does, in fact, send user information to the police, reported Politico.
“As stated in Ring’s law enforcement guidelines, Ring reserves the right to respond immediately to urgent law enforcement requests for information in cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.
“Emergency disclosure requests must be accompanied by a completed emergency request form. Based on the information provided in the emergency request form and the circumstances described by the officer, Ring makes a good-faith determination whether the request meets the well-known standard, grounded in federal law, that there is imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requiring disclosure of information without delay.”
As of July 1, the listed date of the letter, Amazon reported giving police users’ information 11 times, in “response to an emergency request.” Apparently, that validity of an “emergency” is determined by Amazon.
“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,” the letter stated.
Politico reported that Ring’s user agreement does not require consent from the owner to disclose information to the police. Still, the letter to Markey was the first time Ring has acknowledged releasing information to the public.
Perhaps just as troubling as the privacy issues raised by Amazon’s disclosures are concerns regarding Ring’s accuracy. According to industry website TechCrunch, 28 members of congress were falsely associated with criminal mugshots by Amazon’s facial identification software.
