In some neighborhoods across the U.S., police are leveraging the growth of home security devices like cameras sold by the Amazon-owned Ring to establish vast surveillance networks.
According to a report from CNET, more than 50 local police departments across the US have partnered with Ring throughout the last two years to extend their surveillance capabilities into suburban neighborhoods.
The cameras, reports CNET, are sometimes offered by law enforcement to residents at discounted prices or even for free with the contingency that users turn over footage upon request.
In towns like Bloomfield New Jersey, CNET reports that neighborhoods are essentially blanketed with the devices, turning suburban streets into hotbeds for ceaseless surveillance.
‘Our township is now entirely covered by cameras,’ Captain Vincent Kerney, detective bureau commander of the Bloomfield Police Department, told CNET. ‘Every area of town we have, there are some Ring cameras.’
From a special dashboard, law enforcement are reportedly able to geo-fence certain areas and then request Ring users for footage that they think may be valuable.
Ring users are supposed to be able to provide footage at their discretion, but according to CNET, the police have attempted to require exchanges of data.
The veracity of that arrangement is confirmed by a post by the Houston police department from March.
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