Amazon's Ring doorbell videos make America less safe from crime
Amazon's Ring doorbell videos make America less safe from crime, not stop package thieves or reveal delivery driver slip-ups or make funny home videos of bears.
In October, a man walked down his Florida street to return a neighbor’s package that had been accidentally delivered to his address. But unbeknownst to this good Samaritan, he was being watched by an Amazon Ring doorbell camera on the front porch, reported The Washington Post. Police told The Post that the Ring device sent an alert to the homeowner and his teenage son, who — assuming there was an intruder — grabbed .45-caliber handguns and opened fire on a woman (not the package returner) sitting in her car.
Surveillance proponents will claim this act of violence had nothing to do with Ring and other networked doorbell cameras.
She wasn’t hurt, but it was a close call. Seven rounds blew through a child’s car seat and lodged themselves in her seatback. If the car seat hadn’t been empty, a child likely would have been killed.
Surveillance proponents will claim this act of violence had nothing to do with Ring and other networked doorbell cameras. They’ll blame the neighbors, the neighborhood, the guns. But we have to face reality: Blanketing our neighborhoods in surveillance devices that promote a culture of suspicion makes all of us less safe.
Devices like Ring and the apps associated with them are made to keep us on constant alert. They ping us with notifications, demanding our attention, and offer “infinite scroll” like Facebook and Instagram, but for neighborhood crime. These devices make watching one another constantly feel acceptable, expected and even addicting. They present surveillance as the new normal, and fear along with it.
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