NYPD Partners With Amazon Surveillance App To Access User Posts

NEW YORK CITY — The NYPD this week will gain access to video, photos and messages posted to Amazon's home surveillance app through a new partnership with the company Ring, officials announced Wednesday.

New York City's police force joins more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide who have signed up for access to Neighbors — an app that allows users, with or without Ring doorbell-cameras, to post hyperlocal safety alerts — since the program launched in 2018, according to the NYPD and information on Ring's website.

“True public safety is a shared responsibility,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a statement. "This tool stands to further advance the collective work of our police and all the people we serve toward reaching that worthy ideal.”

Yet advocacy groups fear the new partnership endangers New Yorker's civil rights and could encourage racial profiling across the five boroughs.

“The NYPD has never been a good neighbor to most New Yorkers," said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP. "This move will only put more people at risk."

STOP's extensive 2021 report on such police partnerships includes nationwide reports on issues that range from the comical — officers spending too much time on Ring watching raccoon videos — to the alarming: Neighbors app users in Brooklyn and Manhattan often targeted people of color, a Vice report found.

"This sort of crowdsourced surveillance will only lead to more wrongful arrests, racial profiling, and police violence," Cahn said.

"Most New Yorkers would second guess installing these home surveillance tools if they understood how easily these systems could be used against them and their families by police.”

Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, echoed Cahn's warning, noting law enforcement agencies have used the Neighbors App to view footage of Black Lives Matter protesters.

"The NYPD entering into one of these controversial corporate surveillance partnerships with Amazon is a danger to all New Yorkers' safety and basic rights," Greer said.

"All this surveillance partnership with Amazon will do is exacerbate the NYPD's discriminatory and harmful policing practices."

A Ring spokesperson confirmed the NYPD will be able to connect to the Neighbors app, where they will be able to post missing person alerts, share safety tips and engage with users.

"Ring built the Neighbors App to help residents connect and share important crime and safety information with their communities and the local public safety agencies that serve them," the spokesperson said. "The New York Police Department can now engage directly with local Neighbors App users."

Ring launched in 2013 marketing "smart doorbells" that allowed users to access its video through an internet connection and, on Sept. 11, 2018, was bought by Amazon for $839 million, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows.

Ring and the NYPD's partnership begins in the coming week, officials said.

A map posted to Ring's website shows 2,288 law enforcement agencies have signed up for the Neighbors Public Safety Service — a significant increase from the 1,700 local law enforcement agencies Consumer Reports reported had partnered with Ring as of March 2021.

The NYPD's profile appeared on Ring's map of law enforcement agencies using the Neighbors Public Safety Service Wednesday afternoon.

The NYPD does not pay to use the Neighbors Public Safety Service and cannot access user information unless it is posted publicly in the Neighbors app.

Police can request information or video through a publicly viewable post called a "Request for Assistance."

Posts to the Request for Assistance category — which users can opt not to receive — are publicly viewable and linked to profiles identifying police as police.

Ring sometimes provides information — first reviewed by its legal team — to police in emergency situations.

The NYPD will not monitor the app 24 hours a day, but police will have access to a map and timeline which can include photos or video, police said.

The information provided by Ring, according to a 2019 by the Washington Post, has had an interesting side effect in communities across the nation when it comes to how Americans perceive crime.

Radd Rotello, a Frisco Police Department in Texas, told the Washington Post Ring users faced with detailed maps of reports began to believe crime was increasing.

"The crime has always been there," Rotello reportedly told locals. "You’re just now starting to figure it out.”

The report details one instance in Maryland where a user uploaded video of boys ringing a Ring doorbell on Halloween.

“Early trick or treat," the user captioned the uploaded video. "Or are they up to no good?”