DOORBELL SURVEILLANCE NETWORKS HAVE ARRIVED. SHOULD WE BE SCARED?

• Author: McCullagh, Declan

THE AMAZON-OWNED SECURITY firm Ring wants to let police know what's happening in your neighborhood. Law enforcement agencies that sign up are provided with a web-based map showing which homeowners have installed Ring doorbell cameras. They can request access to recorded videos--bypassing that pesky step of obtaining a search warrant first.

"We just like the fact that Ring wants to work with law enforcement and the citizens and bring us into the same forum to try to keep our community safe," Tony Botti, public information officer for the Fresno County Sheriff's Office in California, told Government Technology. "It lessens the work we have to do; maybe we have to knock on a few less doors to get the video."

When police use Ring's so-called Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal to request archived footage, customers in that area receive an alert: "Sharing your Ring videos is absolutely your choice, and none of your information has been shared with law enforcement. However, if you'd like to take direct action against crime in your community, this is a great opportunity...."

Ring has been exceptionally secretive about its relationship with law enforcement, insisting on contracts that limit what government agencies may disclose. What has become public--thanks to public records requests by journalists and a handful of leaks--suggests that the company has enlisted police as de facto salespeople by providing camera "credits" in exchange for sales efforts. One confidential agreement obtained by Motherboard says that for every resident who downloads Ring's "neighborhood watch" app, local law enforcement receives a $10 credit toward the purchase of free Ring cameras. Over 400 departments reportedly have signed up.

Ring has also tried to shape news coverage, instructing one Florida police department to delay an announcement about the partnership and contractually insisting that public statements about the program be vetted by the company.

Headlines across the country have described this arrangement as creating a massive surveillance network. In cities dotted by many Ring cameras (or competitors such as Nest, Canary, and Arlo), law enforcement can probably reconstruct a pedestrian's movements from the time he enters a neighborhood until he exits.

Not all borderline-creepy technologies are illegal or should be: Lower courts have said that you enjoy no reasonable expectation of privacy on a public street, let alone on your neighbor's doorstep. While the...