Uploaded Ring footage reportedly provides location to the square inch, Ars Technica

**************************************A Ring camera doorbell. (********************** Amazon’s aggressive push to grow its surveillance-camera company Ring is working, and adoption has skyrocketed in the past two years thanks to deals with hundreds of police departments. A new set of reports highlights the ways Amazon convinces police to join those partnerships — and the amount of data that users can inadvertently reveal.

In a location selected at random in Washington, DC, for example, Gizmodo was able to identify at least 1, 863 Unique Ring cameras that had uploaded video to Neighbors during the – day window. In their 9-square-mile sample of Los Angeles, they found at least 5, 50 Ring cameras; in Denver, 1, (**************************************************************. ************

Ring did not refute Gizmodo’s location findings, the site reports. Instead, the company said, “Only content that a Neighbors user chooses to share on the Neighbors App is publicly accessible through the Neighbors App or by your local law enforcement.”

Gizmodo also spoke with a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has used several years’ worth of video posted to Neighbors to make a similar map. He has so far pinpointed the locations of about (************************************************************************, ****************************************************************************************** (0 Ring cameras.)Ring did not refute that it was possible for anyone, armed with the data Gizmodo acquired, to pinpoint the exact locations of users homes. Instead, the company reiterated that, “Only content that a Neighbors user chooses to share on the Neighbors App is publicly accessible through the Neighbors App or by your local law enforcement.”

What privacy?When neighborhoods are blanketed with surveillance cameras, the privacy implications are profound. And because these cameras belong to individuals, there are few if any restrictions on what footage can be captured or used.

In Washington, DC, for example, Gizmodo notes that at least (Active Ring cameras line the path between one public charter school for grades 6 – and the soccer field its students use. Gizmodo also found several dozen instances of DC residents using Neighbors to share videos of children. Some of the kids in question were reportedly doing such activities as riding bicycles and taking selfies. Not exactly striking threats to public safety — but in a densely urban environment such as the District of Columbia, perhaps the homeowners simply did not have lawns to tell the kids to get off of.

Security and surveillance experts voiced concerns to Gizmodo that such a web of cameras could easily track individuals going into or out of “sensitive buildings. ” So the reporters looked and did indeed find at least one health clinic that provides abortion services within “unnerving proximity” to some Ring cameras, as well as a legal office handling immigration and refugee cases. Having footage showing individuals going to those sorts of facilities uploaded to a platform like Neighbors and becoming widespread could actually put individuals’ lives in danger.It keeps growing and growing and …Amazon first published a comprehensive list of its police partnerships at the end of August, following several media reports and estimates from private researchers . As of August (******************************************************************************, ********************************

had Ring deals.

active police partnerships nationwide — an increase of about (% in) ******************************* (just one quarter) ******************************. ************Vice Motherboard just wrapped athree-part seriesexamining how Ring managed to grow so quickly. In short, Ring courts cops about the same waybig pharmaceutical companies court doctors: with face time and freebies.