US House of Representatives investigates Ring’s policy and conduct

Following the public criticism and lawsuits filed against Ring (a subsidiary of Amazon), the sub-committee on Economic and Consumer Policy in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Amazon, inquiring about Ring’s partnership with governments and police departments and Ring’s policy regarding collected data. In the letter, among others, the subcommittee asked for the following documents: Ring’s agreements with cities, law enforcement agencies, and neighborhood watch groups, a list of all law enforcement agencies that have access to the Ring’s Neighbors Portal, all instances in which a law enforcement agency has requested video footage from Ring, all service providers with which Ring has shared consumers’ personal information, all of Ring’s sources of computer-aided dispatch data, current and past versions of Rings’ policies and procedures regarding employee access to video and any unauthorized access made by Ring employees to video footage, documents referring to the use of facial recognition tools and the actual integration of facial recognition within Ring video doorbells, Ring’s policies on privacy and obtaining consent from people in Ring videos, Ring’s research on privacy, racial profiling and customer complaints on Ring’s security vulnerabilities. The sub-committee has also asked for a briefing from Amazon on Ring’s privacy and security measures.