By James Pero For Dailymail.com
Published: 21:59 BST, 5 June 2019 | Updated: 23:22 BST, 5 June 2019
4
View
comments
In some neighborhoods across the U.S., police are leveraging the growth of home security devices like cameras sold by the Amazon-owned Ring to establish vast surveillance networks.
According to a report from CNET, more than 50 local police departments across the US have partnered with Ring throughout the last two years to extend their surveillance capabilities into suburban neighborhoods.
The cameras, reports CNET, are sometimes offered by law enforcement to residents at discounted prices or even for free with the contingency that users turn over footage upon request.
Ring isn't just a home security tool anymore. Police department are using the cameras to monitor neighborhoods across the U.S
In towns like Bloomfield New Jersey, CNET reports that neighborhoods are essentially blanketed with the devices, turning suburban streets into hotbeds for ceaseless surveillance.
'Our township is now entirely covered by cameras,' Captain Vincent Kerney, detective bureau commander of the Bloomfield Police Department, told CNET. 'Every area of town we have, there are some Ring cameras.'
From a special dashboard, law enforcement are reportedly able to geo-fence certain areas and then request Ring users for footage that they think may be valuable.
Ring users are supposed to be able to provide footage at their discretion, but according to CNET, the police have attempted to require exchanges of data.
The veracity of that arrangement is confirmed by a post by the Houston police department from March.
'HPD will be able to send alerts to the neighbor’s app. Such as crime and safety incidents in real time, request information about local crime and safety from neighbors who option in to sharing for a particular request, and work with the local community to build trust and to make the community safer,' reads the post.
In a statement, Ring criticized those practices.
Ring says the policy of requiring that users exchange information with police does not represent their own
'Ring does not support programs that require recipients to subscribe to a recording plan or that footage from Ring devices be shared as a condition for receiving a donated device. We are
