When I was growing up, I would often laugh at adults who scorned technology. “Phones are tracking our every move,” they claimed. “They’re keeping our kids from developing! Soon kids won’t even know how to read books anymore because of their phones!” It’s become a Gen Z joke that an unrelated ailment, when brought up to a parent, will be met with “it’s because of that phone/computer/video game!”
Of course, when I was growing up, technology was just starting to take off. Products like Facebook, YouTube and even Android and iPhone devices came about before I was even 10 years old. The internet was used for chatting with friends and making cat memes. How could it be dangerous?
But as technology became more advanced and complicated, so too did the need to protect it. You wouldn’t want someone to break into your house and steal the new phone you’d just spent $100 on. Security systems became more advanced, in a bid to protect people’s homes.
The Ring doorbell system uses motion-detecting cameras to capture footage from your porch. Through the use of the Neighbors app, you can view video from the camera, be notified when your doorbell rings, and communicate with visitors through the doorbell’s microphone and speaker. It can record footage whenever the doorbell rings, or whenever the motion-detecting cameras are set up.
Ring, a company owned by Amazon, recently announced a drone camera, the Ring Always Home Cam. The drone sits in a charging dock, occasionally leaving and flying around your home and recording footage. It also can be connected to the doorbell, so whenever you’re away and the doorbell detects activity, the drone will fly around your home to record any footage of a possible break-in.
If this doesn’t sound suspicious to you, let me remind you that Ring has partnered with law enforcement before. According to an article by CNet, “Police departments across the country…have offered free or discounted Ring doorbells to citizens, sometimes using taxpayer funds to pay for Amazon’s products. While Ring owners are supposed to have a choice on providing police footage, in some giveaways, police require recipients to turn over footage when requested.” According to the article, police can watch footage taken on Ring cameras through the Neighbors app, though there have been circumstances where police have gone to the homes of owners of Ring doorbells to ask for their footage.
With the motion-activated camera, the Ring doorbell can capture motion on the streets. If enough people have a Ring doorbell, their neighborhood becomes a highly surveilled space. But by inviting the Ring drone into your home and allowing it to fly around, you are making your home into a surveilled space. While Ring promises that the drone is loud enough to announce its presence, that doesn’t change the fact that it will be recording you in your home.
An article from IEEE Spectrum points out that a mobile camera can’t be avoided. It posits that the drone could “permit an abuser to check in on their partner wherever they are.” While the drone moves on a route customized by the owner, it still means that any area of your house the drone enters will be monitored.
If police can access footage from a Ring doorbell, they certainly could access the footage from a Ring drone. While this is good if your house is broken into, it’s bad if the police have any reason to want to watch your activity.
There is also the issue of your data being tracked by Amazon and used to sell products. Many online retailers and organizations track your data in order to better promote products to you. For example, Facebook will look at groups you join or things you post to recommend more pages, or YouTube will look at the videos you’ve watched to give you ads more relevant to what it thinks you will like. Amazon, however, has multiple ways of getting your information, depending on how many of its products you have. If you have a smart home decked out with all the Ring and Alexa products, then Amazon can see who comes to your home, what you sound like, and what you buy, and will use this data to sell you things. According to an article by Phys.org, “Amazon stores recordings of every interaction you’ve had with Alexa.”
As we move further and further into the digital age, it’s always important to keep track of how much information you’re allowing companies like Amazon to take from you. As nice and convenient as products like Alexa and Ring are, they are a tradeoff between privacy and comfort.
Categories: Opinion
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