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So Much For The 4th: Ring Allows Cops To Acquire Recordings Of Non-Suspect’s Home And Business

from the welcome-to-the-cloud! dept

Amazon’s doorbell surveillance acquisition, Ring, has spent most of its time, money, and energy courting cops. If law enforcement agencies are willing to forgo a little dignity and autonomy, the company will given them cameras free of charge, allowing cops to expand their surveillance capabilities by outfitting homes with recording devices.

The free cameras come with an implicit request: when the cops come knocking, surely you, Joe Consumer Goods, won’t reject their requests for footage from your FREE CAMERA. And, sure, Ring made it a bit more difficult for cops to acquire footage without warrants after receiving a considerable amount of backlash, but the fact remains anything stored in the cloud (the default option presented to Ring users) can be obtained without the explicit permission or knowledge of the people who supposedly own these cameras.

This fact remains true even if the person’s cameras weren’t the end result of law enforcement largesse. As Alfred Ng reports for Politico, a Ring customer found out the hard way that rejecting overbroad requests for camera footage just means cops will ask Ring to hand over what you, the camera owner, refuse to give them access to.

While investigating some drug activity, Hamilton, Ohio law enforcement officers asked resident Michael Larkin if they could have access to some of his doorbell footage. Larkin obliged.

The police said they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor, and they wanted videos of “suspicious activity” between 5 and 7 p.m. one night in October. Larkin cooperated, and sent clips of a car that drove by his Ring camera more than 12 times in that time frame.

Larkin, a local business owner, figured that would be the end of it. But the police were just getting warmed up. They asked for footage covering an entire day.

“He sent one asking for all the footage from October 25,” Larkin said. That was a far bigger ask, he said. Larkin told POLITICO that he has five cameras surrounding his house, which record in 5 to 15 second bursts whenever they’re activated. He also has three cameras inside his house, as well as 13 cameras inside the store that he owns, which is nowhere near his home. All of these cameras are connected to his Ring account.

Larkin rejected this request, mainly for logistical reasons. Every recorded clip (even if only seconds long) could take as much as a minute to download and send to the PD. And, obviously, “all footage” would include footage recording inside his house, as well as at his business — neither of which had any connection to the crime being investigated.

Rather than recognize Larkin’s rejection of this overbroad request as legitimate, the Hamilton police department decided to cut him out of the equation. Investigators secured a warrant to, in essence, search Larkin’s home and business. But it didn’t serve the warrant to him. It served the warrant to Ring.

The warrant included all five of his outdoor cameras, and also added a sixth camera that was inside his house, as well as any videos from cameras associated with his account, which would include the cameras in his store. It would include footage recorded from cameras he had in his living room and bedroom, as well as the 13 cameras he had installed at his store associated with his account.

All the cops had to show the court was that it was likely Ring had this footage on its premises. And Ring did have them, because recordings were automatically backed up to its cloud servers. It’s not clear whether or not Ring received an affidavit in support of the (pretty fucking bare bones) warrant [PDF] given the green light by a county judge Daniel Haughey.

Whatever the cops said to convince the judge that footage from inside a non-suspect’s home and business was relevant to a drug investigation involving other suspects entirely apparently was good enough for Ring. It turned everything over without a fight.

Ring’s spokesperson, Brendan Daley, says the company “reviews” all warrants served to it by law enforcement to ensure the requests are not overbroad. That being said, he also said this:

In Larkin’s case, Daley confirmed to POLITICO that Ring reviewed Larkin’s warrant, and provided a full response to the legal request: It sent all the footage police asked for.

The PD has refused to comment on the warrant or this case, citing the ever-popular “active investigation” as the reason for its refusal to discuss its overly broad request for footage it shouldn’t have ever requested. Its spokesperson, Brian Ungerbuehler, did say this, however:

He added that the department did not obtain any video footage from inside the house.

Lest anyone read this as evidence of the department’s restraint and better judgment, the only reason the department did not obtain this footage was because this footage did not exist.

Larkin said it was fortunate his indoor camera listed in the request was unplugged for the timeframe the warrant specified, while his living room and bedroom cameras are only activated when his home alarm system is active.

The department asked for it. It never thought that it shouldn’t. And the only reason it didn’t get to peek into Larkin’s home life is because the footage was never created. This absolves the PD of nothing. And it definitely doesn’t let Ring off the hook for deciding a one-page warrant that said nothing more than the PD was aware Ring runs a cloud storage service was all it needed to turn over all footage from multiple cameras.

Larkin said no when law enforcement asked for too much. The cops knew they couldn’t talk a judge into entering Larkin’s home to seize cameras and footage. But they did know Ring might help them out. So they bypassed the person whose recordings were actually being seized, making a complete mockery of the Fourth Amendment and any other privacy laws meant to protect consumers. And they did it all with the assistance of a company that has spent millions cozying up to cops and now wants to portray itself as a protector of its customers by claiming (without citing details) it performs a thorough review of law enforcement demands for recordings.

Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. No one involved in this debacle cares about Ring customers or their rights. Not the cops. Not the camera company. And, apparently, not even Judge Daniel Haughey, who was expected to be the adult in the room.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, hamilton, hamilton pd, home security, ohio, police, ring, ring cameras, surveillance, warrant
Companies: amazon, ring

Arlo Makes Live Customer Service A Luxury Option

from the basic-competency-is-extra dept

Wed, Oct 20th 2021 01:54pm - Karl Bode

The never-ending quest for improved quarterly returns means that things that technically shouldn’t be luxury options, inevitably wind up being precisely that. We’ve shown how a baseline expectation of privacy is increasingly treated as a luxury option by hardware makers and telecoms alike. The same thing also sometimes happens to customer service; at least when companies think they can get away with it.

“Smart home” and home security hardware vendor Arlo, for example, has announced a number of new, not particularly impressive subscription tiers for its internet-connected video cameras. The changes effectively involve forcing users to pay more money every month if they ever want to talk to a live customer service representative. From Stacey Higginbotham:

“This week, Arlo launched what I generously think of as its pay-for-customer-service enticement for its smart home camera products. As of Oct. 4, customers without a subscription who?ve had their devices for more than 90 days no longer get phone support. And after one year, they lose access to live chat support.”

If you don’t pay Arlo more money for actual customer service, you’re relegated to cobbling together support solutions from the company’s forums, an automated website chat bot, or elsewhere. Given the cost of Arlo products, the decision to make speaking to an actual human being a 3to3 to 3to15 monthly add on is fairly ludicrous:

“Arlo?s customer support framework now requires a 2.99to2.99 to 2.99to14.99 per month Arlo subscription, a free trial plan, or the device to be within 90 days of purchase for phone support. Then you?re downgraded to chat support for the remainder of the year.

After that, absent a plan, Arlo customers with problems will only have access to a virtual assistant or the public forums. That means no phone support and no chat. This feels pretty punitive for a product that can cost between 130and130 and 130and300 depending on the device.”

Even U.S. telecom giants, the poster children for atrocious U.S. customer service, haven’t meaningfully pursued making live customer support a premium option (though they have tinkered with innately providing worse support to folks with low credit scores). Arlo’s choice comes amidst higher shipping costs and supply chain issues during COVID, but the decision to try and recover those higher costs by making basic competency a luxury tier will likely come back to bite it in an IOT space that’s only getting more competitive.

Filed Under: customer support, home security, iot, subscription fees
Companies: arlo

Spectrum Customers Stuck With Thousands In Home Security Gear They Can't Use

from the walled-gardens dept

Mon, Dec 23rd 2019 06:23am - Karl Bode

For the better part of the decade, ISPs like Comcast and Spectrum have been desperately trying to carve out a niche in the home security and automation space. But despite their best efforts those projects haven’t gone particularly well, to the point where big ISPs try to hide how many subscribers have signed up for such service in earnings reports. Historically, users already feel they pay their cable TV and broadband provider too much money, and only a few folks feel it’s worth paying them even more for home security and automation products they can find elsewhere, usually for less.

Customers received a good reminder last week of why it’s not worth buying home security and automation services and products from their ISP. Charter Spectrum, the nation’s second biggest cable provider, has announced it’s shuttering its home security services as of February:

“At Spectrum, we continually evaluate our products to ensure we are bringing you superior, consistent and reliable service. We perform regular reviews of our services and as a result, effective February 5, 2020, we will no longer be providing or supporting Spectrum Home Security service.”

The problem: customers spent thousands of dollars on much of this Spectrum-branded gear, and while the hardware they received supports smart home standards like Zigbee, they’re built in such a way as to be locked to Charter’s (soon to be nonexistent) systems, rendering them useless. Needless to say users aren’t thrilled to learn they now own thousands of dollars in useless hardware, something that wouldn’t have happened had they bought off the shelf gear:

“All these devices are Zigbee based, made by a major player in the Zigbee devices game. Under normal circumstances, you would be able to take all your stuff and move it over to your own home automation solution (Samsung SmartThings, Wink, Hubitat to name a few). But nope, not Spectrum?s devices. Early on they were firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and usable within the normal universe of Zigbee devices. With a couple of exceptions Spectrum?s Zigbee devices will only see the Spectrum Zigbee universe. So essentially after Feb. 5, 2020 your house full of Zigbee devices will be useless.”

Spectrum users are quick to point out this could have all been avoided with a little elbow grease by Spectrum, but the company couldn’t be bothered:

“The criminal part in this is that with literally a 10 minute fix and firmware to those devices BEFORE they shutter their service would open them to the universe of compatible Zigbee devices but you can take to the bank that Spectrum isn?t going to do it, otherwise they would have mentioned it with the announcement. All those hundreds of dollars (thousands in some cases) down the drain? how does that make you feel?”

The cable industry’s relentless desire to keep you locked in their proprietary walled gardens are also on full display when it comes to their cable box monopoly, and it’s one of countless reasons why these companies enjoy some of the lowest customer satisfaction ratings in America. And while Spectrum has struck a deal with Abode to give these customers a discount on new security systems, that’s cold comfort for those who shelled out thousands of dollars for hardware they can no longer use.

Filed Under: home security, iot, ownership, support
Companies: spectrum

Home Security Company Says No One Linking To Its Website Is Allowed To Disparage It

from the lol-no dept

With a federal law in place forbidding this sort of stuff, and an internet full of documentation detailing just how badly things go for companies that institute these policies, why on earth would ADT Security add this clause to its Terms of Use?

Hey @ADT! The answer is NO, and I'm quitting your service and going to a competitor. If you don't want bad reviews, try better prices and service, not this kind of shady legal garbage. pic.twitter.com/PcUnIqVabR

— scriptjunkie (@scriptjunkie1) December 3, 2017

For those of you who can’t see the tweet, soon-to-be-former ADT customer scriptjunkie has been informed via dialog box ADT’s Terms of Use have changed. ADT’s Terms of Use contain a Streisand Precursor: if you link to ADT’s site, you promise not to do several things, including:

Will not disparage ADT, ADT’s products or services, or any of ADT’s affiliates or their products or services

This isn’t even legal in this day and age, but hiding it in a bunch of words users will likely never read is a great way to fly under the federal law radar. This, of course, only lasts until someone points it out on the internet and, while linking to ADT’s site, points out the clause is stupid, the company is stupid for deploying it, and the company’s lawyers are just as stupid for suggesting it/signing off on it.

To be fair, ADT’s stupid non-disparagement clause isn’t part of the update scriptjunkie received. The moronic “promise” it extracts from site linkers dates back to at least 2014. It predates the federal law banning these clauses, which makes its pre-2016 existence somewhat explicable. But that doesn’t explain why it hasn’t been removed to make the Terms of Use federal law-compliant.

Considering the amount of effort it would take (next to none) to remove this from the site’s Terms of Use, its continued existence is perplexing, especially in light of ADT’s repeated promise to remove the clause. At the time of this writing, more than 16 hours have passed since ADT promised to remove it and the clause still exists on the Terms of Use page. Even more perplexing is ADT’s explanation/apology, which is actually neither.

We also value your honest opinion and have built our company around implementing our customers’ feedback. The non-disparagement clause you are referencing only applies to linking to our website and is not a condition of service or using ADT.com.

While it’s nice to know ADT isn’t preventing people from disparaging the company without linking to its site, trying to prevent them from doing so while linking isn’t any better. Review sites tend to provide links to company websites, making third-party reviews a potential violation of this clause.

But even if we take ADT’s explanation at face value, we’re still left with its questionable decision to insert this language anywhere in any explicit or implicit agreement with site visitors and/or customers. No business should ever take this indefensible position, especially not after it’s been made statutorily explicit these agreements are considered invalid — and illegal — by the federal government.

Filed Under: home security, non-disparagement, reviews
Companies: adt