NY Times Article Blasts Amazon Ring

Industry Disrupter Under Fire by U.S. Congress
Led to 0 Arrests Nationwide

Your Amazon Ring Camera Spied on You - Now What?

Congress Demanding Answers About Data & Law Enforcement

'Gaping Security Holes' - Hijacked Cameras' - 'Hidden Code Sharing Data'

The internet-connected doorbell gadget, has gained a reputation as the webcam that spies on you and that has failed to protect your data.

The company fired four employees over the last four years for watching customers’ videos. Last month, researchers found that Ring’s apps contained hidden code, which had shared customer data with third-party marketers. And in December, hackers hijacked the Ring cameras of multiple families, using the devices’ speakers to verbally assault some of them.

This week, Ring announced new protocols to strengthen the security of its products, such as mandating two-factor verification, which requires you to punch in a temporary code before logging into your account to see your footage.

Yet security experts said that Ring had been slow to react and that its solutions were weak.

One major caveat: Sharing your phone number with someone you don’t trust is another privacy risk. If hackers got your phone number, they could use it as a piece of information to break into other online accounts. Even worse, they could try to hijack your number by tricking your phone carrier into porting your digits onto a new SIM card — a practice called SIM swapping.

“Ring has done precious little to address the broader threats to privacy that their devices enable,” said William Budington, a technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit group, who helped discover the trackers embedded inside Ring’s apps. Based on the gaping security holes in this home security product, I personally wouldn’t recommend buying a Ring device.

By default, the Ring app will send you notifications when law enforcement agencies are seeking video footage from you to aid them in investigations.

On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee issued a letter to Amazon, requesting information on Ring’s relationships with law enforcement and the data it collects.

The security concerns make Ring products impractical to own. nytimes.com


Amazon lets police ask for Ring videos that are more than a month old

U.S. Senator: 'Lack of Privacy & Civil Rights Protections in Chilling'

Amazon’s Ring home security company lets police ask users for videos that are up to 45 days old and 12 hours long, Amazon said in a letter released today.

Ring has been the source of privacy concerns for months, as the company, which offers doorbell cameras, faces questions about how it works with law enforcement.

The home security business has partnered with hundreds of police agencies around the United States, giving a way for officials to request customer footage through Amazon, with users’ approval. Those reports prompted Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) to ask Amazon for more information on Ring’s privacy practices.

Today, Markey released Amazon’s responses. To ask for video footage, the company says, police must provide a specific case number, but otherwise doesn’t require any evidence for police to request footage.

Markey said in a statement that the responses show Ring was “an open door for privacy and civil liberty violations.”

“Connected doorbells are well on their way to becoming a mainstay of American households, and the lack of privacy and civil rights protections for innocent residents is nothing short of chilling,” the senator said in the statement. theverge.com


Senator Markey Investigation into Amazon Ring Doorbell Reveals Egregiously Lax Privacy Policies and Civil Rights Protections

Lawmaker found Ring has no evidentiary standards for law enforcement to request video footage, no compliance mechanisms to ensure footage of children isn’t collected

Washington (November 19, 2019) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and leading champion on Congress on strengthening online privacy, today released alarming findings from his investigation of Amazon doorbell company Ring that reveal little to no privacy policies or civil rights protections for video collected by the technology. Senator Markey began his investigation in September of the internet-connected doorbell company Ring, which Amazon owns, and Ring’s partnership with over 400 police departments. Reports indicate that the partnerships offered law enforcement officials access to video footage captured by Ring’s products. New information also showed that Ring uses targeted language to encourage users to grant the police access to doorbell video footage, proactively courts law enforcement partners, and urges the police to take steps that will increase rates of video sharing. After two inquiries to the company, Senator Markey found an alarming disregard for basic privacy protections for consumers, as well as a lack of codified rules or policies to protect consumers from invasive or even discriminatory information-gathering practices.

“Connected doorbells are well on their way to becoming a mainstay of American households, and the lack of privacy and civil rights protections for innocent residents is nothing short of chilling,” said Senator Markey. “Amazon Ring’s policies are an open door for privacy and civil liberty violations. If you’re an adult walking your dog or a child playing on the sidewalk, you shouldn’t have to worry that Ring’s products are amassing footage of you and that law enforcement may hold that footage indefinitely or share that footage with any third parties. Amazon’s Ring is marketed to help keep families safe, but privacy rights are in real danger as a result of company policies. Amazon is not doing enough to ensure that its products and practices do not run afoul of our civil liberties.”
 
In his investigation, Senator Markey found:

• Ring has no security requirements for the law enforcement offices that get access to users’ footage

• Ring has no restrictions on law enforcement sharing users’ footage with third parties

• Ring has no policies that prohibit law enforcement from keeping shared video footage forever

• Ring has no evidentiary standard for law enforcement to request Ring footage from users

• Ring refuses to commit to not selling users’ biometric data

• Ring has no oversight/compliance mechanisms in place to ensure that users don’t collect footage from beyond their property

• Ring has no oversight/compliance mechanisms in place to ensure that users don’t collect footage of children

• Ring has no compliance mechanisms in place to prohibit law enforcement from requesting and obtaining footage that does not comply with Ring’s Terms of Service

Responses to Senator Markey’s first and second letters to Amazon can be found HERE (September 2019) and HERE (November 2019). Senator Markey’s original September 2019 letter can be found HERE and October 2019 HERE.   senate.gov


Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn't much of a crime fighter

Deafening Lack of Evidence it Makes City's Safer

Winter Park Police Department hasn’t made a single arrest facilitated by footage obtained from Ring cameras since it partnered with the company in April 2018.

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.

The flood of footage generated by Ring cameras rarely led to positive identifications of suspects, let alone arrests. Thirteen of the 40 jurisdictions reached, including Winter Park, said they had made zero arrests as a result of Ring footage.

Ring itself says it does not know how effective its own cameras are in catching theft itself, much less identifying suspects.

“There’s a deafening lack of evidence that any city has been made safer,” Liz O’Sullivan, the technology director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a nonprofit that fights excessive local and state-level surveillance, told NBC News.

The lack of evidence that Ring reduces crime adds to a list of concerns that have plagued the company in recent months, ranging from bad security practices to privacy questions surrounding the company’s plans to incorporate facial recognition, among other biometric characteristics.

In 2019, the number of law enforcement agencies that have signed such agreements increased more than tenfold from 61 to 766. As of Feb. 1, 2020, there are 887. nbcnews.com

Editor's Note: This trend may wear off simply because there's no ROI for law enforcement and if the vulnerabilities continue the consumers will move on to more reliable systems.