| Hey, We wanted to make sure you saw this email we sent about Amazon Ring's police partnerships. Since we emailed you, our partners at EFF and Privacy International have put out important research about the reach of Ring's police partnerships in the U.S. and in the U.K, including the news that in London, the Metropolitan Police have received nearly £250,000 to install 1,000 Ring cameras in "crime hotspots."1 With so much attention on the consequences of Amazon's partnerships with police, and a growing global movement for racial justice, now is the moment for Amazon Ring to sever its ties with police. Sign the Petition You can read our full email on this issue below. Thank you for speaking out,
The Mozilla Team
| Amazon has just announced it won't sell its Rekognition facial recognition technology to law enforcement for a year — to give time for legislation to prevent its misuse. But Amazon's Ring has not yet made the same commitment, in spite of the potential for footage from Ring cameras to be misused in ways that harm Black people. Tell Amazon Ring to immediately halt sharing information with law enforcement. Take Action |
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Hello, IBM, Microsoft and even Amazon are pausing their facial recognition programs right now because this technology is often biased along the lines of age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Even more concerning, evidence suggests that even when facial recognition works as expected, it's often used to surveil people of color. Bottom line: facial recognition and law enforcement just don't mix. The story doesn't end there, though. Amazon's Ring doorbell cameras pose similar risks, because Ring shares its footage with law enforcement through its Neighbors Law Enforcement Portal, which has been called the "perfect storm of privacy threats."2 If Amazon is serious about its new police policies, it must extend its moratorium to include Ring. Sign the petition to ask Amazon Ring to immediately press pause on its partnerships with law enforcement. By immediately halting Ring's police collaborations, Amazon will be honoring its own statement that it "stand[s] in solidarity with the Black community — [its] employees, customers, and partners — in the fight against systemic racism and injustice."3 The protests surrounding the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have highlighted the disproportionate levels of police surveillance used on Black people. Right now, Amazon is collaborating with over 1400 police departments in the United States alone.4 Ring cameras have already been documented to facilitate racial profiling,5 and activists have been organizing to protect communities of color from Amazon's law enforcement collaboration.6 We are calling on Amazon to make good on its pledge to fight systemic racism by: - Issuing a moratorium on Ring police partnerships, including with federal authorities.
- Not deploying facial recognition in Ring.
- Ensuring that these actions apply globally, not just in the United States.
Sign the Petition Amazon has made the right move with its Rekognition moratorium, and now we're hopeful it continues to do the right thing. Will you join us and ask Amazon Ring to immediately press pause on its partnerships with law enforcement? Thank you for your support,
— The Mozilla Team References: - Privacy International, "One Ring to watch them all," PI blog, June 25, 2020
- Matthew Guariglia, "Amazon's Ring Is a Perfect Storm of Privacy Threats," EFF blog, August 8, 2019
- Amazon, "The inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people...," Twitter Post, May 31, 2020
- EFF, "Hundreds of Police Departments with Deadly Histories Partner with Amazon's Ring Surveillance Cameras," EFF Press Release, July 2, 2020
- Martha Ross, "Nextdoor: When a neighborhood website turns unneighborly," Mercury News, Sept 15, 2015
- Kari Paul, "Amazon says 'Black Lives Matter'. But the company has deep ties to policing," The Guardian, June 9, 2020
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