John,
Good news: facing growing backlash from our campaign, Amazon finally caved and released the full list of cities where they have surveillance partnerships with police departments.1
But here’s the bad news: this for-profit surveillance dragnet is spreading like a virus. There are already more than 400 cities participating, and more than a dozen new ones added in the 14 days since the release.
If elected officials don’t hear from us right now, these surveillance partnerships will spread to every city in the country. Tell mayors and city officials to stop police from entering into for-profit surveillance partnerships with companies like Amazon.
TAKE ACTION
Through these partnerships, police officers market Amazon Ring to residents in their cities. In exchange, Amazon Ring makes it easy for the police to request and access surveillance footage from people’s homes, without a warrant, and then store it indefinitely. Once collected, stored footage can be used to conduct facial recognition searches, target protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, teenagers for minor drug possession, or shared with other agencies like ICE or the FBI.2
Millions of Americans believe they are buying safety but in reality they are helping to build a nationwide surveillance network owned and operated by Amazon. With no oversight, Amazon is free to do whatever it wants with the license plates, faces, and voices caught on the surveillance footage. They could sell the data, build a database of "suspicious people," or expand their facial recognition technology.3
Don’t let Amazon crowdsource our faces, voices, and personal information for their surveillance dragnet. Click here to demand elected officials take action and stop police department/Amazon Ring partnerships.
For our basic rights,
Ayele at Fight for the Future
Footnotes:
1. Amazon Ring: https://blog.ring.com/2019/08/28/working-together-for-safer-neighborhoods-introducing-the-neighbors-active-law-enforcement-map/
2. CNET: https://www.cnet.com/news/you-shared-ring-footage-with-police-they-may-share-it-too/
3. The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/13/this-patent-shows-amazon-may-seek-create-database-suspicious-persons-using-facial-recognition-technology/?arc404=true
Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.
