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Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance (www.eff.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-st

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[–] 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Why do people want to see who comes to the door?

My brother installed one of these at his house and it makes me uncomfortable, but I know he probably feels safer and more in control by having it, and would value that over my comfort.

Then I start to gaslight myself, "why am I uncomfortable with the surveillance apparatus getting regular identifiable videos of me at a known location"?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    FedEx drivers routinely lie about folks not being home to accept delivery, but in reality they never even go up to the door to ring the doorbell or knock on the bell. Having evidence that the driver never showed up can help dealing with FedEx to get a package that they repeatedly fail to deliver.

    That's about it though, I don't actually have a doorbell camera at the moment (I did, but it died, and I haven't bothered to replace it), and I really resent the mass adoption of surveillance cameras pointed out at public roads and sidewalks, especially Ring cameras which have been repeatedly shown to be readily available to law enforcement.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 year ago

    This seems to be exclusively American thing. I presume it's a big safety issue there. Here in Thailand people rarely even lock their doors let alone care about something like video doorbells.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    We had a burglary a couple of months ago, luckily we have an indoor camera which scared him away when he saw it and nothing was stolen. On the camera recording, we heard that he was ringing the doorbell for a couple of minutes to check if anyone is at home. We now have a camera doorbell (not Ring one though), if we had it then he would see it and avoided our house altogether.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yeah we have a camera pointed at our driveway from our garage door. It isn't close enough to the road to trigger movement from people walking or driving by.

    But if they come inside the fence it'll pick em up.

    Also have a couple of cameras watching other random parts of the yard. We live on just under 2 acres, and it's all enclosed in chain link fencing. Next to us is an automotive maintenance shop owned by a buy here pay here lot a few miles closer to town, and they don't always hire the most trustworthy individuals to work on cars....

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