Ring Shares Footage with Police in Cases of Emergency

By Yehudit Garmaise

Although representatives from Ring, which is owned by Amazon, have said they will not share customer information with police without consent or warrants, the home security company has provided footage to police without users’ consent 11 times this year, abc7reported.

Ring’s users’ concerns about their privacy and civil liberties were raised after U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass) made public on Wednesday a letter he received from Amazon that responded to his inquires about Ring's surveillance practices and interactions with law enforcement.

Ring repeated that it will not share customer information with police without consent, a warrant: except in cases that are considered emergencies.

 The 11 videos Ring shared this year fell under the company’s emergency provision, Brian Huseman, Amazon's vice president for public policy, wrote in a letter dated July 1.

"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," Huseman wrote.

In such cases, Huseman wrote Ring "reserves the right to respond immediately to urgent law enforcement requests for information."

 Amazon revealed in its letter that 2,161 law enforcement agencies are enrolled in Ring's Neighbors app, which is a forum for residents to share suspicious videos captured by their home security cameras. That number represents a five-fold increase since November 2019, according to Sen. Markey.

"As my ongoing investigation into Amazon illustrates, it has become increasingly difficult for the public to move, assemble, and converse in public without being tracked and recorded," Markey said.