August 28, 2019
Ring/YouTube
Amazon's home security company, Ring, known for its ever-popular doorbell cameras, disclosed Wednesday more than 400 partnerships with police departments across the country.
Amazon's home security company, Ring, known for its ever-popular doorbell cameras, disclosed Wednesday more than 400 partnerships with police departments across the country.
The company's partnerships with police departments have been trickling into public knowledge over the past few months, but Ring made things official Wednesday ahead of a feature story from the Washington Post. The company published an interactive map, detailing each partnership with law enforcement, including 15 in Pennsylvania and six in the Philadelphia area.
Here are the six police departments with standing partnerships with Ring:
• Lower Salford Township Police Department
• Hatfield Township Police Department
• Lansdale Police Department
• Northampton Township Police Department
• Lower Gwynedd Township Police Department
• Upper Darby Township Police Department
Law enforcement agencies can use their partnerships to access the Neighbors by Ring app, a mobile app in the vein of Citizen or Nextdoor, designed to alert users to crime and safety alerts in their neighborhood. Law enforcement can use a video request tool to automatically request footage from normal users' cameras, by going through Ring, though users are allowed to deny the request, according to the company.
The partnerships do not provide law enforcement with access to users' cameras or devices through the Neighbors app, according to Ring, or access to user account information or device locations.
You can view the full map of partnerships below:
"Neighbors and local law enforcement have achieved amazing results by working together through the Neighbors app, from getting stolen guns off the streets to helping families keep their children safe, and even recovering stolen medical supplies for a diabetic child," Ring said in a blog post Wednesday. "Every member of a community plays a vital role in making neighborhoods safer, and we’re proud that our users can decide how exactly they want to contribute to those conversations.
"We’ve also been thoughtful about designing how law enforcement engages with the Neighbors app to ensure users always stay in control of the information they share, and that their privacy is protected."
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