Amazon Ring says US police will now need warrant to access user footage

In an about-face, the company disables feature allowing law enforcement to request footage directly from users

Amazon Ring will now require US law enforcement to obtain a warrant to access doorbell footage from individual users. The company announced in a blog post that it would no longer allow law enforcement to request doorbell footage directly from users in the company’s social networking app, Neighbors. The move is an about-face from Ring’s long-held and controversial policy that drew the ire of civil liberties and privacy advocates.

At the bottom of a blog post about new features that make it easier for Ring users to share “heartwarming or silly” videos in the Neighbors app, Amazon announced that it was doing away with its “request for assistance” (RFA) feature. Up until this announcement, public safety agencies including police were able to ask users to voluntarily share video footage from their Ring cameras rather than seeking warrants to obtain that user data from Amazon.