Senator Ed Markey, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, is calling on Amazon to reconsider its plans to incorporate facial recognition technology into its Ring doorbells.
In a letter to [1] Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy, Ed Markey the [2] US Senator of Massachusetts expressed concerns that the company's newly introduced “Familiar Faces” feature [3] poses significant risks related to mass surveillance in American neighborhoods. Markey characterized the rollout as a substantial increase in surveillance technology, citing potential threats to privacy and civil liberties. He asserted that individuals should not have to worry about being monitored or recorded while passing by residences equipped with Ring cameras. Markey characterized the rollout as “a dramatic expansion of surveillance technology” that introduces “vast new privacy and civil liberties risks.” He contended that individuals should not fear being tracked or recorded when passing by a residence that has a Ring camera.
His letter continues a campaign initiated in 2019, aimed at holding Amazon accountable for its surveillance practices. Previous efforts led to modest reforms, including clearer consent notifications and the discontinuation of automatic footage sharing with law enforcement. However, Markey maintains that these steps do not sufficiently address the broader issue of unregulated biometric monitoring. In September of 2019, Senator Ed Markey [4] sought clarification from Amazon regarding the privacy policies of its Ring security cameras, after allegations emerged that the company permitted users to record video beyond their property boundaries and provided police departments with direct access to user footage through collaborations with numerous local agencies.
Ed Markey sent [5] a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos concerning Ring, the internet-connected doorbell company owned by Amazon, and its collaboration with more than 400 police departments. “Although Amazon markets Ring as America’s ‘new neighborhood watch,’ the technology captures and stores video from millions of households and sweeps up footage of countless bystanders who may be unaware that they are being filmed, I am particularly alarmed to learn that Ring is pursuing facial recognition technology with the potential to flag certain individuals as suspicious based on their biometric information,” said Markey.
In 2022, Ed Markey [6] accused Amazon of neglecting privacy standards. He highlighted the company's choice not to implement end-to-end encryption by default for consumers, its reluctance to disable automatic audio recording, and the lack of transparency regarding the distance at which devices may record conversations. Markey further expressed concerns about the growth of the Neighbors Public Safety Service, a platform that allows police departments to directly request footage from Ring users. He stated that these actions demonstrated significant shortcomings in protecting the data of American citizens, even prior to the company's move to incorporate biometric technology.
Ed Markey [7] said in his letter to Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy, “Ring’s surveillance system threatens the public in ways that go far beyond abstract privacy invasion: individuals may use Ring devices’ audio recordings to facilitate blackmail, stalking, and other damaging practices. As Ring products capture significant amounts of audio on private and public property adjacent to dwellings with Ring doorbells including recordings of conversations that people reasonably expect to be private the public’s right to assemble, move, and converse without being tracked is at risk.” Markey commented that the company's lack of response to the latter issue reflects significant concerns in light of its recent announcement.
Tristan Greene, [8] a contributor to The Next Web, stated in 2020 that Amazon's [9] Ring and facial recognition technology pose potential risks to societal safety. “The greatest threat posed to democracy in any free nation is that of ubiquitous government surveillance. Many countries today are struggling to find the proper balance between useful facial recognition and connected-camera technologies and those that threaten our privacy. We’re here to make it easy: Public-facing facial recognition or connected home-security camera systems that offer access to law enforcement are dangerous and should be banned outright,” said Greene. “We’ll start with Amazon’s Ring devices. Here’s how Amazon convinces millions of people they need to pay $200 for the privilege of letting hackers, Google, Facebook, contractors in other countries, and the US government spy on them.”