Amazon’s Ring has announced to dump their ‘Request for Assistance‘ tool this week, cutting off access to police personnel, which they use to aid their investigations.
While the company didn’t mention any reason for this move, it’s probably due to the community criticism that pushed Ring to obsolete this tool. The company was repeatedly accused of sharing customers’ ring footage with law enforcement without their permission.
Access Cutoff After Criticism
Amazon’s home security subsidiary, Ring Inc, is sun-setting the ‘Request for Assistance‘ tool this week, which for long helped law enforcement to access customers’ videos for their investigations.
This is a big move from Ring, considering it spent years partnering with law enforcement to aid their investigations by sharing customer data. In 2023’s transparency report from Amazon, Ring was described to have received over 2,000 information requests from government officials in the first six months.
In 40% of those cases, Ring handed over customers’ videos to authorities, alongside their names, addresses, and billing information. Things escalated in 2022 when Ring shared the customer footage with the police without notifying them, attracting criticism and reform movements from civil liberties groups.
Members of Congress have long spent pressuring Amazon to change how it provides camera footage to law enforcement. All these may have resulted in the company now shutting down the data request tool, although it didn’t explicitly mention the reason.
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