Cops Are Running Ring Camera Footage Through Their Own Facial Recognition Software Because Who's Going To Stop Them
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Ring may be holding off on adding facial recognition tech to its already-problematic security cameras, but that's not stopping any of its not-exactly-end-users from doing it for themselves.Ring is swallowing up the doorbell camera market with aggressive marketing that includes the free use of taxpayer-funded services. It calls over 600 law enforcement agencies "partners." In exchange for agency autonomy and free cameras, police departments all over the nation are pushing cameras on citizens and asking them to upload anything interesting to Ring's "I saw someone brown in my neighborhood" app, Neighbors.The company that has someone in charge of its facial recognition division Ring claims it's not using to implement facial recognition tech is handing out cameras like laced candy. Law enforcement agencies are snatching the cameras up. And they're snatching the footage up, using subpoenas to work around recalcitrant homeowners. Once they have the footage, they can keep it forever and share it with whoever they want.They can also run the footage through whatever hardware or software they have laying around, as Caroline Haskins reports for BuzzFeed.Amazon does not offer the ability to recognize faces in footage on its Ring doorbell cameras. But just one month after police in Chandler, Arizona, received 25 surveillance cameras for free from the company, the department's then–assistant chief discussed using its own facial recognition technology on Ring footage at a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, according to his slideshow obtained in a public records request.In an April presentation titled “Leveraging Consumer Surveillance Systems,” Jason Zdilla discussed various consumer surveillance devices and platforms. Examples cited in the presentation included Ring cameras and the Neighbors app.It's the perfect storm of unaccountability. Footage can be obtained from Ring with a subpoena. Ring hands it over with zero strings attached. Cop shop runs it through the Zoom Enhancer and any databases it has or has access to. Bingo: facial recognition in cameras supplied by a company that says it's not all that into facial recognition at the moment. Now, you may be wondering why this is a big deal. Why does any of this matter when other surveillance systems with cloud storage are likely similarly responsive to subpoenas and place no restrictions on footage they hand over to law enforcement?Well, two things: first, Ring claims all footage belongs to camera owners, but treats camera owners as if they're not a stakeholder when it comes to sharing their recordings with the government.Second -- and far more importantly -- Ring aggressively courts police departments as "partners," turning consumer products into unofficial extensions of existing government camera networks. Ring hands out free cameras to cops and hands out even more freebies if cops convince homeowners to download the Neighbors app and share as much footage as possible. Ring also takes control of all PR efforts and official statements involving Ring doorbells that cops have given to citizens. And Ring coaches cops how to obtain footage without having to trouble the courts with a warrant.This is unlike any other company in the home security business. Ring's assimilation of hundreds of law enforcement agencies blurs the line between public and private in the name of commerce. Taxpayers are contributing to their own co-opting into a surveillance mesh network propelled by one of the largest companies in the world. This isn't acceptable. But the longer Ring's expansion remains unchecked, the sooner its behavior will become normalized. And once it's normalized, it's over.
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Dec-2019
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Want To See Pete Davidson Do Standup? There's An NDA You Have To Sign First...
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I never stop being surprised at how often the topic of comedy and comedians makes it on our pages. Between strange concepts like comedians claiming copyright on stand-up jokes and a more violent war sometimes waged on the technology audience members carry around in their pockets, it really does feel like those in comedy should have, you know, a better sense of humor about all of this.But to really see the combination of entitlement and disdain for the public at work in the world of comedy, you have to turn to SNL's Pete Davidson. Davidson apparently tries to smuggle in a non-disclosure agreement to anyone that buys tickets to his stand-up shows, with penalties of up to a million dollars for violations of that agreement.Whatever you do, never tweet at a Pete Davidson comedy show. The “Saturday Night Live” cast member has recently been doling out non-disclosure agreements before each of his recent comedy shows.Most recently, fans attending Davidson’s standup at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco were asked to sign a lengthy contract that forbade them from tweeting or instagramming any opinions about the performance. I find it hard to believe that such an NDA would stand up in court. Regardless, it takes a special kind of audacity to make your living in comedy, an industry completely reliant on free speech principles and social commentary, and then insist that paying customers sign away their ability to do likewise. It's enough, seriously, that you have to wonder if this is some new kind of experimental comedy that Davidson is trying out.Except that customers who have refused to sign the NDA have reported getting full refunds of their purchases without further explanation. If this is comedy, the public appears to be waiting for the punchline.One attendee, Stacy Young, originally discovered by Consequence of Sound, posted the alleged NDA on her Facebook. It stated: “the individual shall not give any interviews, offer any opinions or critiques, or otherwise participate by any means or in any form whatsoever (including but not limited to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or any other social networking or other websites whether now existing or hereafter created).”The document posted on Facebook also states “Individual is or will be a guest of the Company at a performance event for the purpose of viewing ‘works in progress’ creative content ...”.The fine for breaking said NDA was a whopping $1 million. "In the event of breach of this agreement, individual shall pay company, upon demand, as liquidated damages, the sum of one million dollars, plus any out of pocket expense." As we've said, comedians have, for some time, been wary of technology within the walls of any given performance. Cell phone bans have become somewhat common. The stated concerns for that sort of thing have typically revolved around the fear that audiences will record and distribute contents of the show to the public, or that they will record jokes out of context to make comedians sound more offensive than they intend to be. Those fears, while ultimately lame, are at least understandable.But forcing paying customers to not have a public opinion about a show? That's purely crazy."I understand that comedians are protective of their material," Young added. "But to not be allowed to express an opinion, whether I liked it or not, is off-putting in an Orwellian thought police way." Someone might want to sit Pete Davidson down and explain to him that 1984 wasn't a comedy.
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