Amazon's Ring and Google Can Share Footage With Police Without Warrants (or Your Consent)

U.S. law let's companies like Google and Amazon's Ring doorbell/security camera system "share user footage with police during emergencies without consent and without warrants," CNET reported this week. They add that after that revelation "came under renewed criticism from privacy activists this month after disclosing it gave video footage to police in more than 10 cases without users' consent thus far in 2022 in what it described as 'emergency situations'."

Instances where the police did not have a warrant are included. In response to emergency requests, Ring has provided videos to law enforcement only 11 times this year. 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. Of the 11 emergency requests Ring has complied with so far in 2022, the company said they include cases involving kidnapping, self- harm and attempted murder, but it won't provide further details. Ring was asked if it told customers after granting law enforcement access to their footage. The spokesman said there was nothing to share.

CNET also supplies this historical context: It's been barely a year since Ring made the decision to stop allowing police to email users to request footage. Facing criticism that requests like those were subverting the warrant process and contributing to police overreach, Ring directed police instead to post public requests for assistance in the Neighbors app, where community members are free to view and comment on them (or opt out of seeing them altogether)... That post made no mention of a workaround for the police during emergency circumstances.
When CNET asked why that workaround wasn't mentioned, Amazon response was that law enforcement requests, "including emergency requests, are directed to Ring (the company), the same way a warrant or subpoena is directed to Ring (and not the customer), which is why we treat them entirely separately."

There is no mention of warrantless emergency requests in Ring's transparency reports.

It's not just Amazon, according to a new report. It's up to the companies that process user video footage to decide if or not to give the police warrantless disclosure during emergencies. To date, it has never complied with warrantless requests for user data, despite the fact that it reserves the right to do so. Apple uses end-to-end encryption as the default setting for user video, which blocks the company from sharing that video at all. Ring enabled end-to-end encryption as an option for users in 2021, but it isn't the default setting, and Ring notes that turning it on will break certain features.

Do you think the bottom line is correct? umers have a choice about what they like. You can't make informed choices if you aren't well-informed and the brands in question don't always make it easy to understand their policies and practices. The details of emergency exceptions granted without user consent or independent oversight were only revealed after a Senate probe. There are instances in which footage may be shared without a warrant, subpoena or court order according to the emergency sharing policies described in the terms of service.