The Legal Line Between Safety and Privacy
Ring, owned by Amazon, has found itself in hot water several times due to privacy concerns. The FTC settlement alone — with Ring paying out $5.8 million for allowing employees and contractors access to user videos — is a clear sign of the risks. As someone who covers the legal sector, I’m often struck by how these seemingly harmless technologies can blur the line between security and surveillance. And what happens when the same footage designed to protect you ends up being used against you?
Many of us are aware of the classic scenarios — Ring footage shared with law enforcement to assist in an investigation. But do you know that footage can be handed over without your permission? In “exigent circumstances,” a legal term meaning situations that require urgent action, Ring can legally share your camera’s recordings. In fact, Ring provided law enforcement access to videos 11 times without notifying users last year. And while it’s easy to imagine this as an exceptional case, it still raises valid questions.
A personal rule of thumb: “If it’s your footage, you should have control over it.” But the truth is, once that data is in the cloud, ownership becomes murky, and you might not have as much say as you think.
