We can only hope these companies are treated as collaborators in the future.
When do you people WAKE UP? What accountability? What responsibility? When in the last decade plus has any if that happened?
I’m sure it’s just around the corner…
Open your damn eyes. The entire planet can see it, why are Americans so blind?l is it intentional? You guys let J6 slide ffs, why would there be an ounce of accountability now or ever? UNREAL
While you’re at it, don’t buy from amazon
*you’re
You would think that text prediction would be better by now but no
Oh look another smart technology I didn’t adopt for the exact reason being talked about. You can’t trust big tech to not collaborate with whoever it’s the most profitable to collaborate with.
It’s not really a trust thing. They are companies, not people. The top decision makers have a fubuciary responsibility to do whatever makes money. They can, and often do, get sued if they don’t. So you can expect them to sell you out. It’s literally thier purpose for existing.
- fiduciary
You’re right, of course, but I really enjoyed “fubuciary”. It’s a deliblicious misplomuncitation.
I can’t argue with that.
I really think you should try. This us the Internet after all!
But I thought the courts decided that companies are people. :|
Only when it is good for “business”
They are companies run by right wing shitbags. How many genocides were conducted on Facebook?
Can we all agree to print out flyers of this to share around with neighbors and our communities? People ARE under educated. It starts with us educating because the oligarchs wont
I doubt that anyone who has a ring camera, alexa and anything like that will care. Maybe people who think about getting one will, but a random flyer?
I care. I have Ring because it was the fastest way to get cameras on my property after trouble with neighbors. I found out how liberal they are with user data and handing it over to law enforcement but I couldn’t justify the expense in upgrading. For me this isn’t a bridge too far in a moral sense but more like a powerful reminder I’ve been lax in my responsibility. I’m pricing out some Reolink cameras I can host locally at home and put on a private subnet I can just VPN into. I’ll have to buy the kit piecemeal because I don’t have a lot of money to toss around but I am firmly committed to getting off Ring cameras in light of this news.
Ring is owned by Amazon, so it makes sense. You can’t really trust any company fully, but Anker and Reolink are OK for now
Reolink
Any cameras that can operate entirely offline are good. Dahua and Hikvision are good too. Look for cameras with RTSP and ONVIF support. ONVIF is a standardized API for interacting with cameras and can handle things like pan/tilt/zoom, sending events from the camera to the NVR (eg motion detection), and a bunch of other things.
I use Blue Iris as my NVR, which is usually regarded as the best, but there’s other good software too (like Frigate), and hardware solutions too.
Just follow best practices - keep them isolated on a separate VLAN with no internet access. If you want remote access to your NVR, use a VPN like Tailscale.
Though, on the other hand, having the video saved offsite is useful because then anyone with physical access to your home can’t get rid of the video showing they’re there.
This is not an argument in favour of using cloud services, because that gives access to your video to anyone the company deems should have access (or sometimes individual workers who either have access as part of their job or gain access because businesses suck at security). It’s in response to you saying isolate the cameras from the internet entirely; there is a good reason to have them connected (though you could have a PC handle that with a connection to two networks and no physical or software bridge between the two, just take video from one, upload (encrypted) to server on other).
Though, on the other hand, having the video saved offsite is useful because then anyone with physical access to your home can’t get rid of the video showing they’re there.
I have Blue Iris configured to send all alert videos to one of my storage VPSes via SFTP. As soon as someone is detected outside, the video clip is sent offsite.
The server and the PoE switch that powers the cameras are also on a UPS, which helps if the intruder tries to shut off the power at the main breaker (which, here in California, always needs to be located outside).
It’s in response to you saying isolate the cameras from the internet entirely
The cameras themselves should always be isolated. No internet access for the cameras at all. Your NVR can have network access, and is what would handle uploading the videos to internet storage somewhere.
Anker owns Eufy right? The company that had all their cameras recording to a publicly accessible cloud storage?
Yeah not trusting them either.
HKSV does not get sent to ICE.
This really highlights how important it is for people to understand what they’re opting into with smart devices. Transparency and informed choice matter more than ever.
the contracts/terms/etc don’t even matter… they can change them at any time, without prior notice. stop buying stuff, plain and simple.
Corporations and fascists: name a better duo
Tl;dr surveillance equipment working perfectly, used for dystopian surveillance. Major shocker.
I enjoy having cameras on my house to see what’s going on in the neighborhood. It has come in handy at least once when my neighbor’s truck was stolen in broad daylight.
They are ring cameras because two were installed already when I moved in. What should I switch to? I just really want motion alerts and proof when something bad happens.
How is the legal situation in the US? Are you allowed to permanently film and record the public space?
In Germany, you have to limit the camera to your public ground, due to private reasons
We don’t have any expectation of privacy in the US. You can place cameras anywhere you like on your property and can film anything in public.
Unfortunately we have to make our own privacy here (by closing the shades, etc.)
Ditch your internet connected shit and boycott these companies
Is there some really good open source and local cameras that people are using? Because many people default to ring.
I am looking at using Eufy, no subscription. Unsure of potential of it joining the darkside.
Edit: China-owned, so it’s a pick-your-poison kind of deal.
Eufy is a sub-brand of Anker, for those unaware.
You can connect Eufy cameras to your NAS (RTSP) if you want to completely avoid sending the recording to the cloud, or only stored on the MicroSD card.
I use ReoLink cameras blocked from the Internet. Locally, the app is p2p and works fine. For remote viewing, I have the rtmp proxied through my home server.
Idk about FOSS but unifi is all locally hosted!
Dammit, I fell for rings assurances of “only in response to a warrant”. Mostly out of laziness, but still …… I really am going to have to figure out self hosting a video doorbell, aren’t i
Sorry, wasn’t meant as a slight against you.
Remember people: Proprietary systems are never yours. And in this case, they own you.
It’s easy to do. Mine is a reolink piped through Home Assistant.
As far as I can tell it’s still voluntary. This is their policy. It sounds like if you choose to share photos or video with public safety organizations, that now Flock and hence ICE can access it.
That all said, fuck Flock and I certainly don’t want anything I share (which I never have) to contribute to the profits of a private surveillance company. The solution here appears to be share nothing with public safety at all ever so that contract is worth nothing.
inaccessible image of text
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
From the article
The partnership, announced in October 2025, integrates Ring’s Community Requests feature directly into Flock’s law-enforcement platforms, FlockOS and Flock Nova, allowing police departments to request Ring camera footage through Ring’s Neighbors app.
Ring Community Requests feature
Community Requests
What is Community Requests?
Community Requests is a privacy-protected service that enables public safety agencies to put out public requests for help and efficiently and securely collect and manage digital evidence. Public safety agencies can post a request in the Neighbors feed asking community members within a specific area to share Ring video footage or information that may help their investigation. Videos customers choose to share in response to Community Requests go directly to Axon Evidence, a secure evidence management system where they can be verified for authenticity and integrity. This also creates a complete audit trail of how and when public safety agencies collect information.
Participation is always voluntary, and public safety agencies can only see what you choose to share.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
Yes, through this program you are technically correct that the user has to press a button to send the video to law enforcement through this specific program.
This implies that the user has the ability to refuse to send the video to law enforcement, but that is not true.
The videos are stored on Flock/Amazon’s servers and that means that the police can, via a subpoena or court order, access the footage or real-time video from any device or storage that the business can access. You have zero say in this and cannot opt out, the case law on requesting ‘business records’ is long settled as is the idea that digital files are considered ‘business records’.
In addition, this program does not preclude Flock/Amazon from voluntarily providing access to anybody or any group that asks/pays. The data is theirs, not yours.
This program is whitewashing the creation of a nation-wide real-time video surveillance network, paid for by you or via your tax dollars.
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
Broken as intended on the Ring website. Couldn’t copy/paste text. Would’ve forced the issue were I on desktop at the time.
Looks like you didn’t read the whole article.
I wonder how they define “Public safety agencies” since other programs refer to “Justice and Public Safety agencies”. Is this difference an oversight or is something being excluded?
It doesn’t matter, nobody would have a cause of action to challenge their interpretation if they decided that it meant any HOA or self-declared neighborhood watch.
In the end they are giving the data that they own to who they choose. The fact that it came from a device that you chose to bolt on the side of your house doesn’t mean anything in this transaction. The data instantly becomes theirs by virtue of the TOS (that you read, right?) that you agreed to when you signed up for the service and you have no say in what someone else does with their data.
These kinds of programs are just whitewashing, it makes it look like there are significant barriers in place to prevent your data from being used to enable a nationwide real-time surveillance network. There are not.
Flock could start charging a subscription fee for access to their video feeds tomorrow and it would be within their rights as owners of that data. The reason that they create these ‘programs’ is because it creates the impression that the user has control of ‘their’ data.
Home “security” cameras cause far, far more angst and grief than they do benefit.
“Hey, mister policeman, here’s a video of a guy stealing my truck.”
“Yep, that’s a guy stealing your truck, alright.”
“…”
“Should’a put it in your garage.”
“My garage is full of crap I bought on Amazon. Some of it, I haven’t even opened. Also, the truck didn’t fit in the garage after I had it lifted.”
“The report is filed, I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“You’re not going to find anything, are you?”
“We’re not even going to look.”
One-third of Nextdoor is lost pets. One-third is people selling crap they bought at Goodwill. And, the last third is people asking about the “suspicious” (non-white) man who walked down the sidewalk past their house at 5AM.
The only reason to contact the police if something gets stolen is so that you can show the report to your insurance company.
Eh my cameras sit local and only get looked at when I am either board and want to do some frigate plus uploads or if something happens. Besides looking where delivery drivers have left packages I have only had one incident.
I will never have a goddamn camera in my home. If I did it will HAVE to be an old school disconnected one that records to a DVR or some SSD HD. I have zero interest in having any unauthorized or unknown access to the interior of my home. This is a goddamn outrage, how is everyone not throwing their ring cameras out already?
Mine is connected to a smart outlet that is only ever powered on when we are away from the house, and it’s connected locally to my home assistant setup.
Local only is the way to go.
