Dozens of police departments around the country have partnered with Ring, but until now, the exact terms of these partnerships have remained unknown. A signed memorandum of understanding between Ring and the police department of Lakeland, Florida, and emails obtained via a public records request, show that Ring is using local police as a de facto advertising firm. Police are contractually required to "Engage the Lakeland community with outreach efforts on the platform to encourage adoption of the platform/app.”

Amazon's home security company Ring has enlisted local police departments around the country to advertise its surveillance cameras in exchange for free Ring products and a “portal” that allows police to request footage from these cameras, a secret agreement obtained by Motherboard shows. The agreement also requires police to “keep the terms of this program confidential.”

The result of Ring-police partnerships is a self-perpetuating surveillance network: More people download Neighbors, more people get Ring, surveillance footage proliferates, and police can request whatever they want.

Police already have access to publicly-funded street cameras and investigative tools that help them track down almost any criminal suspect. But Ring cameras are proliferating in the private sphere, with close to zero oversight. Amazon is convincing people to self-surveil through aggressive, fear-based marketing, aided by de facto police endorsements and free Ring camera giveaways. Consumers are opting into surveillance. And police are more than eager to capitalize on this wealth of surveillance data.

Ring donated 15 free doorbell surveillance cameras to the Lakeland Police Department, and created a program to encourage people to download its “neighborhood watch” app, Neighbors. For every Lakeland resident that downloads Neighbors as a result of the partnership, the documents show, the Lakeland Police Department gets credit toward more free Ring cameras for residents: “Each qualifying download will count as $10 towards these free Ring cameras.” A Ring doorbell camera currently costs $130 on Amazon.

In order to partner with Ring, police departments must also assign officers to Ring-specific roles that include a press coordinator, a social media manager, and a community relations coordinator.

Andrew Ferguson, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia School of Law, said in a phone call that products like Ring can remove typical due process. Typically, police have to get a warrant from a judge before collecting digital evidence. Ring’s Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal, given to police for free as a part of the agreement, lets police request footage directly from Ring owners.

The agreement gives the Lakeland Police Department access to Ring’s “Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal.” This portal is an interactive map that shows police all of the active Ring doorbell cameras in their town. The exact addresses of the doorbell cameras are hidden. Police can use the portal to directly interact with Ring doorbell camera owners and informally request footage for investigations, without a warrant.

The memorandum of understanding is pitched as "a solution to the Lakeland Police Department to help reduce crime and assist with investigations in your community." The document, which includes an "Amazon Legal" watermark, was signed by Ring and Lakeland Police Department representatives on December 13, 2018.

“When really powerful companies, or police for that matter, are incentivized to find crime, they’re going to find it no matter what,” Gilliard said. “It’ll ultimately shift the definition of what is a crime and lead to over-policing in some ways. Frankly, [it’s] the broken windows style that tends to harm marginalized communities more.”

Chris Gilliard, a professor of English at Macomb Community College who studies digital redlining and discriminatory practices enabled by data mining, said in a phone call that this surveillance network can heighten fear of crime and put people’s lives at risk.

According to an email from Ring’s “Law Enforcement Liaison/Territory Manager,” the Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal can do the following:

“What people fundamentally misunderstand is that self-surveillance is potentially a form of government surveillance,” Ferguson said. “Because the information that you are collecting—you think to augment and improve your life—is one step away from being obtained by law enforcement to completely upend your life.”

Image: Screenshot of an email from Ring’s Law Enforcement Liaison/Territory Manager to two members of the Lakeland Police Department.

The Lakeland Police Department was responsible for choosing how it would distribute the 15 doorbell cameras donated by Ring.

The agreement also requires Ring and the Lakeland Police to coordinate on all public communications regarding their partnership. “The parties shall agree to a joint press release to be mutually agreed upon by the parties,” the memorandum of understanding says.

“The [Neighbors] app, it’s necessarily going to be people that are looking for the unusual,” Ferguson said. “The unusual doesn’t just have to be criminal. It can just be uncomfortable, and you can imagine that in certain neighborhoods, that’s gonna correlate with race, it’s gonna correlate with class, it’s gonna correlate with difference.”

As reported by Motherboard earlier this year, racial profiling is prevalent on Neighbors. Ferguson said that Neighbors, by highlighting alleged threats in different areas, cultivates a sense of fear of one's neighborhood, similar to hearing about crime and murders on local news.

Ring was required to “Make the Ring App available to Lakeland residents free of charge.” (Ring’s Neighbors app is already free.)

Ring asked police officers fill certain roles before it entered into a partnership with the police department. These roles—which include “Partnership Point of Contact,” “Press/Media Coordinator,” “Social Media Coordinator,” “Investigative Coordinator,” and “Community Relations Coordinator”—had job descriptions defined by Ring. These job descriptions are shown below.

According to an email from a Lakeland Police Department, the memorandum of understanding was approved by the Lakeland Police Department’s general counsel before the department signed on to it.

There is evidence that the number of towns and cities that have partnerships with Ring is far larger than is currently known. An email obtained by Motherboard includes an introduction of a Ring “Account Manager,” who a fellow Ring employee says “has worked with dozens of agencies in Florida.” This suggests that there are dozens of unknown partnerships between Ring and local police departments in Florida alone.

The emails obtained by Motherboard also reference the organization of two training sessions, which were led by Ring. According to the emails, the first training session was a Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal webinar, to be attended by only the five people with Ring-specific roles. The second training session was in-person and involved a Ring representative coming to the Lakeland Police Department headquarters and speaking to all police officers.

“Involvement by each of these groups is essential for active community participation (specifically on video requests) and overall long-term success of the partnership,” Ring’s “Law Enforcement Liaison/Territory Manager” said in an email to Lakeland Police Department officers.

Ring told Motherboard that these positions weren’t required, but an email from a Ring employee to local police says that Ring would “need” the positions filled.

The Lakeland Police Department did not return Motherboard’s requests for comment.

A Ring spokesperson said in an email that the goal of Ring partnerships with police is to make neighborhoods safer.

“Through these partnerships, we are opening up the lines of communication between community members and local law enforcement and providing app users with important crime and safety information directly from the official source,” the Ring spokesperson said. “We’ve seen many positive examples of Neighbors users and law enforcement engaging on the app and believe open communication is an important step in building safer, stronger communities.”

People often buy and use Ring doorbell cameras under the premise that they’re making their individual homes safer. But these people aren’t just making choices for themselves. They’re consenting to surveilling everyone in their neighborhood and anyone who comes in the vicinity of their home, including friends and family, delivery workers, and anyone else. Ferguson and Gilliard said that it’s important to remember the societal impacts of these decisions.