Ring camera support teams may have access to all video recorded by users [u]
People with Ring indoor or outdoor cameras may have had any some of their private videos seen by teams working for the company, an expose claimed on Thursday. [Updated with additional Ring response]
Ring Labs tagging tools.
Starting in 2016 Ring provided a Ukrainian team, Ring Labs, with "virtually unfettered" access to a folder on Amazon's S3 cloud storage with every video recorded by a Ring camera, according to The Intercept, citing an anonymous source. Files were allegedly unencrypted because Ring was worried that implementing encryption would cost money, and reduce revenue because of restricted access. The Labs team is also said to have been able to associate recordings with a database of Ring customers.
U.S.-based Ring engineers and executives are said to have had unnecessary access to a technical support video portal that enabled live access to some customer cameras. The only thing Ring staff needed to tune into a camera was top-level access and a customer's email address.
Engineers are even said to have spied on each other, teasing each other about people they brought home on dates. Some workers were supposedly aware of being watched, but that may not always have been the case.
Ring Labs was reportedly given broad access because of deficiencies in Ring's facial and object recognition. "Data operators" were assigned to manually tag and label items as a way of training Ring's AI, improving accuracy and reducing false positives. A second source indicated that some employees showed each other videos they were working on, including events like displays of affection or theft.
Hiring for data operators continues.
A Ring spokesperson, Yassi Shahmiri, acknowledged to The Intercept that tagging work is going on, but insisted that videos are taken exclusively from publicly-shared videos in the Neighbors app and "a small fraction of Ring users who have provided their explicit written consent to allow us to access and utilize their videos for such purposes."
Shahmiri further insisted that Ring has systems to "restrict and audit access," and that it punishes anyone violating legal or ethical standards.
Tighter controls were purportedly put on Ring Labs in May after a visit from parent company Amazon, but staffers reportedly found a way to circumvent them.
Ring's smarthome lineup is one of the most popular in the market, thanks in part to Amazon's takeover in February 2018. While the company has yet to support Apple's HomeKit standard, Ring accessories do work with iPhones and iPads.
Update: In a statement to AppleInsider, a Ring spokesperson said that "Ring does not provide employees with access to livestreams of Ring devices."
Ring Labs tagging tools.
Starting in 2016 Ring provided a Ukrainian team, Ring Labs, with "virtually unfettered" access to a folder on Amazon's S3 cloud storage with every video recorded by a Ring camera, according to The Intercept, citing an anonymous source. Files were allegedly unencrypted because Ring was worried that implementing encryption would cost money, and reduce revenue because of restricted access. The Labs team is also said to have been able to associate recordings with a database of Ring customers.
U.S.-based Ring engineers and executives are said to have had unnecessary access to a technical support video portal that enabled live access to some customer cameras. The only thing Ring staff needed to tune into a camera was top-level access and a customer's email address.
Engineers are even said to have spied on each other, teasing each other about people they brought home on dates. Some workers were supposedly aware of being watched, but that may not always have been the case.
Ring Labs was reportedly given broad access because of deficiencies in Ring's facial and object recognition. "Data operators" were assigned to manually tag and label items as a way of training Ring's AI, improving accuracy and reducing false positives. A second source indicated that some employees showed each other videos they were working on, including events like displays of affection or theft.
Hiring for data operators continues.
A Ring spokesperson, Yassi Shahmiri, acknowledged to The Intercept that tagging work is going on, but insisted that videos are taken exclusively from publicly-shared videos in the Neighbors app and "a small fraction of Ring users who have provided their explicit written consent to allow us to access and utilize their videos for such purposes."
Shahmiri further insisted that Ring has systems to "restrict and audit access," and that it punishes anyone violating legal or ethical standards.
Tighter controls were purportedly put on Ring Labs in May after a visit from parent company Amazon, but staffers reportedly found a way to circumvent them.
Ring's smarthome lineup is one of the most popular in the market, thanks in part to Amazon's takeover in February 2018. While the company has yet to support Apple's HomeKit standard, Ring accessories do work with iPhones and iPads.
Update: In a statement to AppleInsider, a Ring spokesperson said that "Ring does not provide employees with access to livestreams of Ring devices."
Comments
ZERO danger of personal information being sold. ZERO danger of it being knowingly shared either without my express permission to do so.
Ad targeting (which uses no data from Nest supplied services anyway) comes with the territory and I'm OK with that. It can be controlled too.
If the device doesn’t support HomeKit, or refuses to function unless I sign up for a forced cloud account, out the door it goes!
I've played around trying to set up my own cameras with RaspberryPI and it's a huge pain. I suppose I've accepted the intrusion for convenience sake.
I can get camera which would record to me NAS but they are 2x to 3x the cost of these other devices, you have to ask why these other guys devices are cheaper, because the are making money off your information.
Show us all the legal document you signed with google/nest to back up your statements, and do not show the EULA which clearly states subject to change without prior notification. I would advise you to install a network sniffer on your home network and watch how much traffic is being send to various google services and server farms.
Without a binding agreement you have no guarantee what Google and Nest are doing with any product they gave or sold you at discount in exchange for them to used your information as they see fit and change that implied consent as time goes on.
Yes you done your research but form the outside these company's, I have worked inside these types of company and I know exactly what they are doing as well as negotiated agreements between companies about what can and can not be done with information. Google outwards legal language which claims to protect people privacy is filling with broad statements with allow them to do as they like once they have your information.
That said, Ring is part of Amazon, not Google, so to wander back onto topic -- people who buy Alexa stuff or Amazon-made hardware deserve exactly what they get wrt to privacy and security. If you think this is an isolated instance in Amazon-land, you are as delusional as GatorGuy is about how Google makes its money (and what every single action Google takes in any area feeds into).
To put this another way -- you've never heard the FBI subpoena, threaten, or otherwise complain about Google or Amazon regarding their privacy and security policies. Even though these are equally large and influential companies that handle even more sensitive data than Apple does.
Before the Apple vs the FBI story Google was already fighting overreaching government data demands, threatened with contempt by the Justice Dept. for refusing to supply user data WRT what the government demand for it.
They still go to court to protect users from data requests that they believe overstep the law. Microsoft did and does the same. Ya gotta get out and read more.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/justice-department-goes-nuclear-on-google-in-search-warrant-fight/
Years before that Google took on the government over "lawful" demands for users search history's... and won. They might demand specific Gmails, or personal account info, or a certain range of location data and comply if it's deemed a lawful demand, but turning over everything you searched/looked at is a no.
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/judge-tells-doj-no-on-search-queries.html
Don't mistake only being aware of what Apple does as meaning no one else will fight for users rights.