Ring Security Cams

Amazon’s Ring security cameras and video doorbells are the most widely used home video cameras in many parts of the world today. As one expert from US privacy org the Electronic Frontier Foundation put it, "Ring has steadily been becoming one of the largest surveillance apparatuses in the nation.” And as wise comic book profit Stan Lee reminds us, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Has Amazon Ring lived up to that great responsibility? No, they haven’t. And if you’re checking in to see if, in 2023, Ring has improved their privacy practices after sooo very many complaints, the short answer is no, not enough.

On the bright side, Amazon is starting to be held accountable for some of their more “egregious violations of users’ privacy” described in a proposed order filed by the FTC in May of 2023. Like when they stored customer data--including video recordings--unencrypted on an Amazon cloud server and gave every employee and even some third party contractors access. The FTC’s complaint also says Ring had failed to keep customers’ sensitive data secure, which made it easy for bad actors to get access to sensitive data too. Since those colossal blunders, they have gotten more transparent in their privacy and data deletion practices, which we appreciate. And they added two-factor authentication to help protect users in 2020, which was a great step forward. One we here at Mozilla pushed hard for. But, we’re still pushing. In June, 2023 we published a security vulnerability impacting Ring’s security after Amazon failed to take action on it for over 90 days. As far as we can tell, they still haven't fixed this vulnerability. So when it comes to Amazon Ring's security scorecard, there’s still lots of room to do better.

Then there is the problematic relationship Ring has with law enforcement where questions of racism, warrantless surveillance, and police overreach still linger. While Amazon says they are distancing themselves from law enforcement access to users' video and requiring more transparency in the process, they are still facilitating law enforcement access with this product and the Neighbors app and that leaves us concerned. They also admitted in 2022 they still share video with law enforcement without users’ permission in some circumstances. And even when Ring does require a court order, that often doesn’t give Americans as much protection as you’d think. That’s because Ring doesn’t have a good track record of pushing back on far-reaching warrants for their users’ video recordings of and inside their homes. That really worries us since Ring reportedly receives thousands of search warrants each year -- a number that’s growing.

Amazon’s Ring and Neighbors app privacy policy says they can collect a whole lot of data (by the way, what’s up with the teeny tiny font on that privacy policy?). Everything from name, phone number, email, postal address, age, gender, the location of your mobile device, video and audio recordings, and potentially even every doorbell press and app interaction you have. And while it’s good Ring says they don’t sell your personal information, they do say they can share your information with a number of third parties for things like advertising, marketing, government and law enforcement requests, and with their business affiliates (which could potentially be a decent number of companies).

There is also the question of privacy violations of the neighbors of people who use home surveillance cameras -- not just Ring but all of home surveillance cameras. A recent court case in the UK highlighted this when a woman sued her neighbor for infringing on her privacy when his Ring security cameras were found pointed at her home. Not only could his cameras see her, they could also listen to her as well. She won her case and $137,000.

On that note, there's also this interesting line in Amazon Ring's privacy policy that puts the responsibility on you to make sure you don't break any surveillance laws where you live, "Privacy and video surveillance laws in your jurisdiction may apply to your use of our products and services. You are solely responsible for ensuring that you comply with applicable law when you use our products or services. For example, you may need to display a notice that alerts visitors to your home that you are using our products or services. Capturing, recording or sharing video or audio content that involves other people, or capturing other peoples’ facial feature information, may affect their privacy rights." So yeah, just know that you are solely responsible for all that weird privacy violating stuff Ring admits they can do right there. Uhg.

And then there are the safety concerns these video cameras raise. Does all this constant surveillance make us safer? Well, the story about the Ring users who opened fire upon seeing a neighbor drop off a misdelivered package at their door raises questions about that. Domestic violence advocates also raise concerns. And privacy experts keep shouting their concerns in places like the NY Times, Consumer Reports, and NBC News.

What’s the worst that could happen? Well, beyond the snooping next door neighbor, the trigger happy, paranoid surveillance junky, the questionable law enforcement partnerships -- and, oh yeah, Amazon Ring's questionable privacy and security practices -- there’s the big concerns about all this constant surveillance. In the United States where abortion has become illegal in a number of states, it is possible anti-abortion activists could use these surveillance cameras to spy on women who are pregnant to see if they carry their fetus to term. And if they don’t -- no matter the reason -- video from these cameras could potentially be used to harass, arrest, and potentially even prosecute women seeking reproductive healthcare, for whatever reason. This is bad. All in all, these security cameras raise too many questions about privacy, transparency, data protection, public safety and racism in our opinion. For this reason, we worry Amazon's Ring cameras come with *privacy not included.