Police In New York Can't Ask This Of Homeowners Anymore

Police in New York are no longer allowed to ask for this from homeowners. It's a huge shift and will likely make it more difficult to solve neighborhood crimes.

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Ring Won't Allow Police To Ask Users For Camera Footage

Ring, which is owned by Amazon, has decided to stop allowing police departments in New York to request footage from its doorbell cameras. Many times, these are the only cameras in residential neighborhoods, so the move could hurt police investigations. But privacy advocates celebrated the decision. According to Fox 5, Dr. Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the decision by Ring is the right one to rebuild trust with customers,

Part of that is re-ensuring them that only you have access to your footage and that police don’t have special tools especially made for them to request your footage through the app.

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Amazon-owned Ring will stop allowing police departments to request doorbell camera footage from users, marking an end to a feature that has drawn criticism from privacy advocates. Amazon will end its “Request for Assistance” in its Ring Neighbor app, which has allowed police departments to request videos captured through the app. Police will now have to use a search warrant to obtain footage.

More: Can You Be Arrested For Recording Someone Without Permission In New York?

In 2021, Ring stopped police from directly emailing camera owners to request footage. Instead, they had to make a public request in the Neighbor app. The goal was to increase transparency according to the Associated Press.

In 2023, Ring paid a $5.8 million settlement after allegations that it allowed employees and contractors to access user videos.