Ring: watch, listen and talk to your visitors. This is the slogan with which
Amazon describes its video doorbells. It is a video-surveillance technology thatanyone can install at the door of their house for the modest price of between 45and 230 euros. ---- Democratizing Video Surveillance ---- Ring's productportfolio is made up of dozens of options, including video doorbells, securitycameras, alarm kits, repeaters, mounts, adapters, and batteries. Not all havereached the Spanish State, but soon they will. The company already notifies it,with a premonitory 'Not available at the moment', in several of the productsadvertised on the Amazon website.It is the era of the video intercom, a camera with more or less sophisticatedfunctions depending on the model purchased. To give an example: the device turnson when it detects movement in the vicinity of the door; whoever owns Ringreceives a notification on her mobile phone; through the camera he sees live whois at the door. With the more advanced versions of the product you startrecording or can even start a conversation through Ring's video calling feature.'I'm doing the shopping, wait for me 5 minutes, I'll get home'. Nothing thatcould not be solved with a traditional call.A quasi-domestic footage databaseThen we will return to the distribution of all kinds of merchandise, for whichAmazon has become known throughout the world. For now, let's remember that JeffBezos' company has been immersed in a race for years to take over the homeautomation market. Among other acquisitions, in 2018 he bought Ring for more than800 million uros. At that point, he pulled rival products from his catalog thatcould previously be ordered from Amazon, like Google's smart video doorbell.Let's go back to the recordings. If you want to access the video intercom filehistory, you must contract the Ring Protect plan, which is available withvariable prices depending on whether one or more cameras are connected. If you donot contract this subscription, there is no way to view the recordings after afew hours from the notification, nor can they be stored on your own device.Proprietary technology, of course. Even if the person who has installed a Ringvideo intercom does not have access, Google stores the recorded footage on itsown servers. For what it could happen.Some of the people who have one of these video intercoms have found funnyepisodes in their footage and have decided to upload them to TikTok, Instagram orFacebook making fun of those who appear, without consent and most of the timeunconsciously, in their videos.Transfer of data to the authoritiesWhat can happen, for example, is that Ring shares data or video with the policeif there is an investigation in the area where a camera is installed. In 2021company reports, it was reported that agreements had been signed with more than2,000 police and fire departments in the United States. In principle, Ring wouldcontact those who own the video intercom to share information at the request ofthe authorities. In practice, this is not always the case. In fact, in the summerof 2022 it was made public that Amazon had provided, without that permission,images to security forces up to eleven times so far this year.The use of this technology by US police has raised concerns and prompted someinvestigations by the press and by human rights activists. In February 2021, forexample, the Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed emails in which the LosAngeles police requested access to their recordings from people who had installedRing in their homes. The purpose of that police investigation was not to solveany crime, but to gather information about the Black Lives Matter Movementprotests against police violence. It was the "first documented evidence that apolice department specifically requested images and video from networked homesurveillance devices related to political activity."The workers against the abuses of AmazonAt the beginning of 2020, Max Eliaser, an Amazon engineer, leaked information andasked the company that Ring be closed due to the privacy problems it entails,alleging that these technologies are not compatible "with a free society."Shortly after, the company applied changes to its internal policies to controlwhat its employees could or could not say in their public statements, which hadto be previously approved by their superiors, and internally typified punishmentssuch as dismissal for not complying with the new regulations.The decision was intended to neutralize complaints such as those of Eliaser, whorecounted how Ring employees and subcontractors had access to private videoswithout limits or acceptance by those who had installed the cameras in or neartheir home. It was also intended to neutralize the actions of any other criticalemployees; like those that make up the group amazonemployees4climatejustice,which has been denouncing the company's impact on climate change; or those whodenounce the use of the Amazon cloud for the administrative persecution of migrants.More than 400 employees then signed a joint campaign to publicly denounce thecompany's abuses and try to stop the imminent layoffs of some of their colleagues.The working class vilified with the help of RingSocial networks have helped popularize Ring because these cameras have become ahuge source of content for them. Some of the people who have one of these videointercoms have found funny episodes in their footage and have decided to uploadthem to TikTok, Instagram or Facebook making fun of those who appear, withoutconsent and most of the time unconsciously, in their videos.In February 2022, the journalist Gita Jackson published an article in which sheexplained how this trend had mutated on TikTok. Some of the people who use thesocial network leave a note on their door to the delivery men who come to deliverpackages to their home, forcing them to dance for the surveillance cameras, andthen upload the video to the platform. Jackson noted that while the driver is notobligated to comply with the bizarre request, "because of Amazon's customerobsession, some drivers feel pressured to do whatever a customer says to avoidgetting a bad review or complaint."» and collected statements from workers likethis: «Technically, if the delivery person does not follow the instructions, theycan receive a penalty for not doing so!».What we can do, from the point of view of users and buyers, is to rejecttechnologies that are not sovereign to us and that do not respect our privacy orour fundamental rights.Amazon looking to expand RingIn November 2022, Amazon Spain published a new job offer: "We are looking for anenthusiastic program manager for Ring." They noted that "the ideal candidate is astrategic thinker, practical, highly process and data oriented."Among the responsibilities of the position are "collaborating with managers andstakeholders to identify objectives or create content." Those interested parties,seeing how the work has developed in other countries, could well be the statesecurity forces, affiliates of social networks or television channels. At themoment, there are no indications that agreements such as those already mentionedby the United States have been signed in our territory. However, job applicantscited the importance of finding a "skilled negotiator with proven experience infinding creative ways to do more with less" among the preferred qualifications.It is not known how that person will carry out his work and what consequences theagreements promoted by his department may have for civil society. What we can do,from the point of view of users and buyers, is to reject technologies that arenot sovereign to us and that do not respect our privacy or our fundamental rights.https://www.cnt.es/noticias/un-anillo-para-vigilarnos-a-todxs/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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