Senator Markey Presses Amazon on Ring Police Surveillance Deal

In a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Senator Ed Markey pressed the company to provide details about Amazon's deal with police departments for police access to the video footage from the company's Ring doorbells. Senator Markey wrote "the integration of Ring's network of cameras with law enforcement offices could easily create a surveillance network that places dangerous burdens on people of color and feeds racial anxieties in local communities." Senator Markey sought information about Amazon's plan to add facial recognition to the doorbell cameras, noting that "facial recognition technology disproportionately misidentifies African Americans and Latinos." In comments to federal law enforcement agencies and statements to Congress, EPIC has repeatedly warned of the dangers posed by facial recognition technology. Several years ago, EPIC urged the FTC to establish a moratorium on the commercial use of facial recognition technology until adequate privacy safeguards were established.