Following years of campaigning by many community organizations including MediaJustice, MJ Network members, and our partners with the Athena coalition, officials at Amazon’s Ring announced that they will no longer provide police departments the ability to request surveillance footage from Ring camera users. For years, police departments have been able to request video footage through Ring’s Neighbors app, including instances when the LAPD requested footage of Black Lives Matter protesters. At times, police have even gotten access to Ring videos without user consent.
This win is a reminder of the power of public pressure to expose and challenge government and corporate collusion aiming to expand surveillance. We’ve worked with our partners to call out Ring’s racist culture, challenged the increasing number of partnerships between Ring and police departments, and campaigned to cancel the TV show ‘Ring Nation’ – an attempt to normalize and promote Amazon Ring’s dangerous network of surveillance cameras. While we recognize this recent win, we know that Ring officials have constantly positioned themselves as friends of cops, enabling a criminalizing, vigilante culture, so our work isn’t over. We remain committed to fighting to dismantle all forms of surveillance, criminalization, and systems of harm fueled by government and corporations, like Amazon. We will continue to fight for truly safe communities that have what they need and deserve, such as healthcare, education, housing and more, instead of violent systems of surveillance and incarceration. We thank all of you who have contributed to this win and look forward to continuing to advance our vision together.
