Thousands of self-installed home security cameras across the Denver area record the daily comings and goings of their neighbors and visitors on their streets, and police are increasingly attempting to partner with camera companies for easier access to the footage.
The Denver Police Department and the tiny southern suburb town of Columbine Valley already work with Ring, a camera company owned by Amazon, to access the business’s app and more easily request surveillance videos. At least three more departments in the Denver metro area have meetings scheduled with the company to discuss potential partnerships.
Police and the company say the agreements allow residents to help police, make their neighborhoods safer and foster engagement between people and officers.
But privacy experts and civil rights advocates are wary. While Ring says police can’t access footage from the cameras without permission, privacy experts said the partnerships are ripe for expansion and raise concerns about racial profiling. The company’s privacy policy also appears to allow Ring to provide content to law enforcement without consent, or even a warrant.
“I would be skeptical of any law enforcement agency or company telling me there’s no other way to get access to this,” said Margot Kaminski, a professor at University of Colorado Boulder’s law school and director of the Privacy Initiative at Silicon Flatirons.
Ring’s app, called Neighbors, allows people to anonymously post recordings captured by their cameras. Videos posted recently in Denver show suspected package thefts, break-ins, the theft of a flower pot and videos of unknown people knocking on a front door labeled as “suspicious” and “creepy.” The app also posts alerts from a “news team” about crimes that happen, citing police radio traffic or local news outlets.
“The concern is that it’s more than the sum of its parts,” Kaminski said. “This is becoming a database, and that database is analyzable.”
Current agreements
The Denver Police Department and the Columbine Valley Police Department are the only two Colorado agencies with a Ring agreement — for now. More than 400 agencies across the country have signed agreements since spring 2018, according to The Washington Post.
Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen in June signed a memorandum of understanding with Ring so that his officers could access the company’s phone app through a specialized portal designed for law enforcement. The agreement allows police to look at any videos or information posted to the app and to communicate with people there. Officers can also send an email to residents on the app in the event of a reported crime asking that they share their videos from a certain time period. Residents can decline the request or ignore it.
The agreement between police and the company state that Ring won’t provide customer information or video footage to police without the resident’s consent or “properly issued legal process that complies with federal and state law, as applicable.”
Commander Rick Kyle said the police department approached the company to discuss a partnership and that no money was exchanged between Ring and the city as part of the agreement. Ring has conducted in-person and webinar trainings for 120 of the department’s officers.
The agreement states that the police department and Ring would work together to write a news release about the partnership, but Denver police never sent one.
The department does not have access to a list of addresses that use the cameras and all users’ names are hidden from police, Kyle said.
“It’s neighborhood watch for the 21st century,” Kyle said, echoing Ring’s slogan for the app. “It’s just another use of social media to reach out to our community.”
Kyle said he hadn’t heard any negative feedback about police joining the app. Comments on a post in the app announcing the addition of Denver police were mostly supportive of the idea.
“Yay! DPD we need you,” wrote one poster, who lives in one of the safest neighborhoods of Northwest Denver. “Have you seen previous posts, especially this summer? Yikes. Feels like my neighborhood has been Crime Central.”
Kyle dismissed the idea that the app could disproportionately increase a perception of danger.
“Not knowing creates fear more than knowing what’s going on,” he said. “It’s important for the neighborhood to be connected and to be aware of what’s actually going on.”
Columbine Valley town administrator J.D. McCrumb and the town’s police chief declined multiple requests for an interview regarding the city’s partnership with Ring. Columbine Valley is a statutory town of about 1,400 near Littleton.
The police department in March posted that it joined the Ring app. The tweet encouraged people to “join us” and download the app through a unique link that includes the town’s name.
More agreements likely
Other Colorado towns are considering agreements with Ring. Representatives of Littleton, Arvada and Westminster said they were in talks with the company.
Arvada police already have received free samples of Ring cameras to use as an example in crime prevention presentations, said Officer Sara Horan, a department spokeswoman. The company sent the cameras to the department without being asked, she said. The department is scheduled to meet with Ring next month to discuss further partnerships.
Although the second-biggest police department in the metro area does not have an agreement with Ring, Aurora police worked with the company in December to create an elaborate operation meant to catch package thieves.
The Aurora Police Department received 15 free cameras from the company and then gave the cameras to “volunteers” from the community, Officer Anthony Camacho, a department spokesman, said. Those people then installed the cameras and police placed fake packages on those doorsteps that contained GPS trackers. Police and the company hoped to catch someone in the act so they could “showcase” an arrest, emails obtained by VICE show, but nobody was arrested.
The operation — internally dubbed Operation Grinch Grab — was a crime prevention effort, Camacho said.
The department is not considering an agreement to gain access to the app, Camacho said.
“There are concerns voiced about privacy issues, and we totally understand that,” Camacho said.
Slippery slope
Kaminski, the law professor, said it makes sense for police to pursue partnerships that give them access to footage. But she warned consumers from believing everything espoused by Ring and police.
The company’s privacy policy states that the company collects users’ names, phone numbers, addresses, the geolocation of users’ cell phone, internet history, information collected from Facebook or other social media accounts linked to a Ring account. The company also collects video and audio recordings from cameras and states it can use any information to develop new products and improve Ring’s business.
The policy also says the company may disclose personal information if required to do so by a court order or subpoena. But it also allows the company to provide information without those steps. The policy states Ring can do so “in response to requests by government agencies, such as law enforcement authorities” or “in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity.”
The company has said it wouldn’t comply with government requests unless required to do so by law.
The privacy notice also allows users to enable the cameras to use facial recognition software. Ring’s parent company, Amazon, already sells facial recognition software to law enforcement.
“If you choose to activate this feature, we obtain certain facial feature information about the visitors you ask your Ring product to recognize,” the policy states. “We require your explicit consent before you can take advantage of this feature.”
Denver police spokesman Doug Schepman said the department does not use facial recognition software and does not plan to in the immediate future. The department tested facial recognition software starting in 2017 but Pazen ended the program after taking the department’s top post in July 2018.
Beyond privacy concerns, Kaminski also said the app could promote racial profiling because the actions of people of color are more likely to be flagged as suspicious, she said.
It’s ironic that an app called “Neighbors” promoted as a way to enhance collaboration also encourages residents to record each other, Kaminski said.
“Maybe it reflects a more go-it-alone sense of citizenship,” she said. “Every person in their own castle.”
