Comment by cybrexalpha
14 days ago
The two are very different.
If you are subpoenaed then you're obligated to respond, and the same is true for Ring. But that's not what we're talking about here. This is law enforcement requesting access, and Ring doesn't require a formal subpoena or warrant. They can decide to comply to nothing more than "someone from a .gov email asked nicely".
It's written out in their terms of service:
> you also acknowledge and agree that Ring may access, use, preserve and/or disclose your Content to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if we have a good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: > > (a) comply with applicable law, regulation, legal process or reasonable preservation request; (b) enforce these Terms, including investigation of any potential violation thereof; (c) detect, prevent or otherwise address security, fraud or technical issues; or (d) protect the rights, property or safety of Ring, its users, a third party, or the public as required or permitted by law.
So Ring is quite happy to hand over your footage to anyone so long as Ring believes it's "reasonably necessary" to protect the rights or property of anyone.
This isn't about Ring complying with a legal request. This is about Ring undermining the fourth amendment entirely by saying "we'll give law enforcement whatever they want".
The feature discussed allows law enforcement to request access from the end user. It's the end user whose consent is required under that regime, not Ring's.
The feature doesn't exist yet. Ring have said it'll be user consent, but we don't know that for sure. My point is that Ring can change their minds about this at any time without informing you, so it doesn't matter how they say it will work if this possibility is still there.
If you want to have a tangential discussion about how you interpret Ring's terms to permit them to do wild things behind the user's back, that's fine; but it would have been better to be more clear about the tangential nature of your comments. If the terms allow them to do wild things behind the user's back, then they can do those things with or without introducing this feature. And they can also introduce this feature with or without the wild things; and with or without terms of service allowing those things. They're orthogonal issues.
In any case, you're mistaken about what the terms allow. When you paraphrased the terms as saying they can "hand over your footage to anyone so long as Ring believes it's 'reasonably necessary' to protect the rights or property of anyone", you neglected to account for the clause: "as required or permitted by law". Under the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S. Code § 2702 (b), there is only a short and narrow list of circumstances under which it is permissible for a provider to disclose communications content without a warrant. The most pertinent is an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury (exigent circumstances), which is what the link in the OP regarding warrantless and consentless disclosures is about. But exigent circumstances are also a longstanding exception to fourth amendment search protections in general: law enforcement can break into your house without a warrant if there are exigent circumstances requiring them to do so.
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