Friday, December 14, 2018

Ring's Latest Patent Application Raises Alarms Among Privacy Advocates

Santa Monica-based Ring has just received a patent on adding facial recognition to its cameras--allowing some future version of the camera to automtically call police on a "suspicious" subject--in a move that has raised alarms among privacy and social advocates. The patent--invented by Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, and applied for by Amazon--involves using multiple, connect Ring Doorbells in a neighborhood to create a composite image of anyone approaching a doorbell and deciding "whether or not to notify law enforcement, family members, neighbors, or the like" about suspicious visitors. The ACLU, among the groups concerned about the patent, warned of Amazon creating "a massive decentralized surveillance network, running real-time facial recognition on members of the public using cameras installed in people's doorbells". Ring's patent application, US 2018/0341835 A1, was applied for on November 29th.

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