Amazon has admitted that it gave footage from its Ring cameras to police without being provided with a warrant or asking the user’s content.
United States Senator Ed Markey wrote to Amazon in June asking about its relationship with the police department.
The letter was prompted by a recent study conducted by Consumer Reports that found that once a Ring’s motion detectors had been triggered, it could record conversation-level audio from up to 25 feet away.
Ring has stated that it will not share “customer information” with law enforcement without consent, a warrant, or “an exigent or emergency” circumstance, Mr Markey’s letter states. In response, Ring says it reserves the right to respond immediately to US police in certain cases.
“Ring reserves the right to respond immediately to urgent law enforcement requests for information in cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person. Emergency disclosure requests must be accompanied by a completed emergency request form”, Brian Huseman, Amazon vice president of public policy said.
“Based on the information provided in the emergency request form and the circumstances described by the officer, Ring makes a good-faith determination whether the request meets the well-known standard, grounded in federal law, that there is imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requiring disclosure of information without delay.”
Ring has provided videos to law enforcement in these instances 11 times. “In each instance, 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”, Mr Huseman said.
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