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You may have already heard of Ring security cameras. Ring, for those who don't know, is one subsidiary of Amazon. Ring cameras, therefore, are in all respects Amazon cameras. Perhaps all Ring's problems relating to privacy begin here and that's why today we want to talk to you about it Ring cameras and privacy.
Ring cameras and privacy
Ring was purchased by Amazon in 2018. One of the features of Ring cameras is its network called Neighbors (neighborhood). Neighbors is a Ring app that will allow you to share some cameras with the community around you to create a sort of neighborhood Big Brother. Thus continuing the dangerous mantra "more camera equals more security". Indeed, this time perhaps even worse: video cameras shared with all the neighbors and the police.
The system in collaboration with the police is active only in the United States. And according to the latest news it seems that giving our data to the police is not of great use, despite the continuous and insistent Amazon marketing supported the opposite.
Thirteen of the 40 jurisdictions reached, including Winter Park, said they had made zero arrests as a result of Ring footage. Thirteen were able to confirm arrests made after reviewing Ring footage, while two offered estimates.
NBCNews
According to one NBC News investigation However, this tool was of little use to the police; out of 40 police stations interviewed, only 13 reported having made some arrests thanks to the videos on the Ring cameras.
In Houston, Texas, America's fourth-largest city, police do not keep detailed statistics of Ring-related arrests but estimate that there have been more than 100 since signing an agreement over a year ago. The city experiences approximately 16,000 burglaries per year.
NBCNews
In short, we should give away our privacy and our data for an extraordinary result like the one obtained by the police in Houston, Texas. A hundred arrests thanks to Ring out of around 16 thousand thefts a year.
Ring cameras and privacy, some examples
Beyond this there was a succession of news disturbing relating to the privacy of Ring cameras. Second Max Eliaser, a software engineer at Amazon, Ring would go closed immediately and never reopened Why totally incompatible with privacy. Or let's talk about the huge amount of Trackers of third parties found inside of the Ring app, as a survey recently told us carried out by EFF.
However, let's not forget the recent one hacker attack at Ring cameras where an external person has I was able to chat calmly with an 8 year old girl.
Hey, let's put a video camera in our 8 year old daughter's room, what could possibly go wrong? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Privacy and cameras in the cloud
In case we weren't too clear, Not put a video camera connected to the internet in your daughter's room.
All this pushed Mozilla to ask out loud to Amazon to include the requirement for two-factor authentication on Ring accounts. The request is unfortunately, for now, remained unheard. From few days Ring said that to deal with the scandals it will force its users to set up 2FA.
In short, if we already had some doubts before about the use of security cameras that put everything online (maybe even on non-European servers) we now also have reasonable certainty of not wanting to buy a Ring camera. At least until things change.
In general, however, we do not recommend using cameras that record 24 hours continuously and that put your images in the cloud and on the internet. Above all avoid places like the bedroom or the your children's room. The privacy policy of these cameras are often a little opaque And unclear, as well as almost always being closed software about which we know very little or nothing.
A privacy-friendly camera?
We remind you that we do not take money, but we still want to tell you about a French video camera in some way friend of privacy. If you are looking for a cloud system at all costs you could consider it.
Is called Somfy and he patented a truly intelligent and curious system. The video camera is in fact capable of physically close the door when not in use. If you are really looking for a security camera you could also consider this interesting option. You will have one reasonable certainty Of Don't be watched while you're at home.
To learn more about this topic you can read this article in Italian Wired, or the investigation NBCNews. We also cited a survey by EFF and the news of hackers on the Washington Post. For other similar articles on our site you can see the section News.
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