Friday, March 10, 2023

Be careful with Ring doorbell video cameras

Police warrant orders man to surrender video from camera inside his home:

Last year, around the Thanksgiving holiday, Ohio businessman Michael Larkin received a request for video from his Amazon Ring security system from Hamilton city police.

He complied, providing video from his doorbell camera that was stored on Ring's servers. After balking at further demands, he subsequently learned that authorities had bypassed the need to get his consent by presenting Ring with a search warrant for video from several of his Ring cameras, including one that covered an indoor area of his home.

According to Politico, Larkin received a notice from Ring that the tech biz had received a warrant and was required to turn over video from numerous cameras, without giving the owner with any say in the matter.

I expect that this won't just happen with Ring video devices.  If you have these sorts of cameras, you might want to make sure they're only recording video of outdoors. 

14 comments:

Tim Covington said...

This is why not a single IT security pro I know has these kind of cameras. If you are not in complete control of the data, assume others will access it.

libertyman said...

I like the quote "But I have nothing to hide". Really? Big Brother just might find something of interest. Orwell was a prophet.

Landroll said...

Puts new meaning to the Beria quote, "Show me the man, I'll show you the crime'.

Michael said...

Wanted to put the Casablanca snip here.

Shocked, Shocked I say...

It's NOT Smart to put Smart devices in your home. As the quote above from Stalin's head of the Secret Police said, "Show me the man, I show you the crime".

Peteforester said...

If you need to record from your cameras, record it LOCALLY, and AIR-GAP it from the 'Net! Po-Po comes to your door looking for video. You say "Get a warrant." Whilst they're doing that, you're wiping the DVR's drive. ...Easy-peasy...

Peteforester said...

By the way; this scenario also plays out if TPTB come looking for your DNA. If you participated in one of those "ancestry DNA" things, the company can be forced to give up your DNA. Supposedly by participating in this kind of thing you give up your right to privacy concerning that...

Old NFO said...

+1 on Michael... sigh

Michael said...

Pete I'm not a tech geek but I suspect your suggestion to wipe the memory will leave traces that a determined investigator With A Warrant to read.

Or the evidence you wiped the drive is not good before the Judge.

My Ring Doorbell is my dogs. I don't even have Wi-Fi in my home as this computer is hard wired. Fact is since I posted the warning signs for being a beekeeper I have very few up my driveway visitors.

I still have that common tattletale the cellphone but have a history of not carrying it daily so my pattern via cell phone-cell tower tracing is odd.

Eric Wilner said...

Amplifying Peteforester: don't just keep the recordings strictly local. Have a data-retention policy. If you don't take action to save the video within some set number of hours, it gets wiped. (Having a set amount of disk space that gets recorded over when full will accomplish this.)
This way, if someone comes along more than X hours after an event asking for video... well, too bad, it was automatically erased IAW documented policy (or because space ran out, whichever). Should have asked earlier.

Aesop said...

Or, you might want to stop being a pussy, install your own video cameras, and answer to no one about what you will and won't cough up on demand, and stop putting private-party Stassi on your own perimeter.

Ring et al are for the lazy and stupid, who will get what they deserve, and deserve what they get.

Next up: Man is shocked to find out his cell phone has been eavesdropping on him and tracking his every move to within 3m 24/7/365/ever.

HMS Defiant said...

A citizen is under no obligation to preserve any data for any reason short of a court order to do so. Absent that? Screw 'em.

WRT the dna thing, it's way worse than what most people think. If anyone in your family does the dna thing it opens the entire family dna to tptb and you won't even know it happened.

Sadly, at this point I'm afraid if tptb cannot find the evidence they need, they'll just make it up and what passes for justice and law in this country will eat it with a fork.

danielbarger said...

If it's on "the cloud" it's not your data. Someone else owns it. They can and will do whatever the like with it.

matism said...

Remember this when they demand that you "support Law Enforcement."

Jonathan H said...

Exactly. Even the LE that I know personally have... Odd ideas about what is acceptable for them and what they can require people to do.
They make excuses and parallels that don't actually add up and have been part of the system too long to understand any other view.