As far as I can tell it’s still voluntary. This is their policy. It sounds like if you choose to share photos or video with public safety organizations, that now Flock and hence ICE can access it.
That all said, fuck Flock and I certainly don’t want anything I share (which I never have) to contribute to the profits of a private surveillance company. The solution here appears to be share nothing with public safety at all ever so that contract is worth nothing.
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
From the article
The partnership, announced in October 2025, integrates Ring’s Community Requests feature directly into Flock’s law-enforcement platforms, FlockOS and Flock Nova, allowing police departments to request Ring camera footage through Ring’s Neighbors app.
Community Requests is a privacy-protected service that enables public safety agencies to put out public requests for help and efficiently and securely collect and manage digital evidence. Public safety agencies can post a request in the Neighbors feed asking community members within a specific area to share Ring video footage or information that may help their investigation. Videos customers choose to share in response to Community Requests go directly to Axon Evidence, a secure evidence management system where they can be verified for authenticity and integrity. This also creates a complete audit trail of how and when public safety agencies collect information.
Participation is always voluntary, and public safety agencies can only see what you choose to share.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request.
Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
Yes, through this program you are technically correct that the user has to press a button to send the video to law enforcement through this specific program.
This implies that the user has the ability to refuse to send the video to law enforcement, but that is not true.
The videos are stored on Flock/Amazon’s servers and that means that the police can, via a subpoena or court order, access the footage or real-time video from any device or storage that the business can access. You have zero say in this and cannot opt out, the case law on requesting ‘business records’ is long settled as is the idea that digital files are considered ‘business records’.
In addition, this program does not preclude Flock/Amazon from voluntarily providing access to anybody or any group that asks/pays. The data is theirs, not yours.
This program is whitewashing the creation of a nation-wide real-time video surveillance network, paid for by you or via your tax dollars.
I wonder how they define “Public safety agencies” since other programs refer to “Justice and Public Safety agencies”. Is this difference an oversight or is something being excluded?
It doesn’t matter, nobody would have a cause of action to challenge their interpretation if they decided that it meant any HOA or self-declared neighborhood watch.
In the end they are giving the data that they own to who they choose. The fact that it came from a device that you chose to bolt on the side of your house doesn’t mean anything in this transaction. The data instantly becomes theirs by virtue of the TOS (that you read, right?) that you agreed to when you signed up for the service and you have no say in what someone else does with their data.
These kinds of programs are just whitewashing, it makes it look like there are significant barriers in place to prevent your data from being used to enable a nationwide real-time surveillance network. There are not.
Flock could start charging a subscription fee for access to their video feeds tomorrow and it would be within their rights as owners of that data. The reason that they create these ‘programs’ is because it creates the impression that the user has control of ‘their’ data.
As far as I can tell it’s still voluntary. This is their policy. It sounds like if you choose to share photos or video with public safety organizations, that now Flock and hence ICE can access it.
That all said, fuck Flock and I certainly don’t want anything I share (which I never have) to contribute to the profits of a private surveillance company. The solution here appears to be share nothing with public safety at all ever so that contract is worth nothing.
Nice of them to completely undermine what “public safety” means for the 326,774,980th time.
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
From the article
Ring Community Requests feature
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
Broken as intended on the Ring website. Couldn’t copy/paste text. Would’ve forced the issue were I on desktop at the time.
Yes, through this program you are technically correct that the user has to press a button to send the video to law enforcement through this specific program.
This implies that the user has the ability to refuse to send the video to law enforcement, but that is not true.
The videos are stored on Flock/Amazon’s servers and that means that the police can, via a subpoena or court order, access the footage or real-time video from any device or storage that the business can access. You have zero say in this and cannot opt out, the case law on requesting ‘business records’ is long settled as is the idea that digital files are considered ‘business records’.
In addition, this program does not preclude Flock/Amazon from voluntarily providing access to anybody or any group that asks/pays. The data is theirs, not yours.
This program is whitewashing the creation of a nation-wide real-time video surveillance network, paid for by you or via your tax dollars.
Looks like you didn’t read the whole article.
I wonder how they define “Public safety agencies” since other programs refer to “Justice and Public Safety agencies”. Is this difference an oversight or is something being excluded?
It doesn’t matter, nobody would have a cause of action to challenge their interpretation if they decided that it meant any HOA or self-declared neighborhood watch.
In the end they are giving the data that they own to who they choose. The fact that it came from a device that you chose to bolt on the side of your house doesn’t mean anything in this transaction. The data instantly becomes theirs by virtue of the TOS (that you read, right?) that you agreed to when you signed up for the service and you have no say in what someone else does with their data.
These kinds of programs are just whitewashing, it makes it look like there are significant barriers in place to prevent your data from being used to enable a nationwide real-time surveillance network. There are not.
Flock could start charging a subscription fee for access to their video feeds tomorrow and it would be within their rights as owners of that data. The reason that they create these ‘programs’ is because it creates the impression that the user has control of ‘their’ data.