A shadowy partnership between Amazon’s ‘smart’ doorbell company and hundreds of police departments across America has fueled paranoia and pushed the country closer to an Orwellian surveillance state, Redacted Tonight reports.

Amazon’s Ring has given 400 US police departments access to its customers’ home surveillance footage, raising serious privacy concerns – particularly because many clients have reportedly never consented to participating in the program.

As Redacted Tonight correspondent Natalie McGill argues, the company feeds on paranoia and prejudice, leading to a spike in reports to police that turn out to be false alarms.

Neighbors are now encouraged to “upload footage and chat about suspicious looking people,” McGill said, adding: “and, by ‘suspicious looking people’, I just mean minorities minding their own f****g business.”

Watch the full episode.

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