Ring admits providing police with warrantless access to user footage 11 times in 2022

In response to questions from Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Amazon vice president Brian Huseman disclosed in a July 1 letter that Ring had provided police with user camera footage on 11 occasions during 2022 without obtaining user consent or court warrants. Amazon justified these warrantless disclosures by citing “emergency” situations involving “imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person,” but declined to elaborate on how it determines such situations or provide details about the specific incidents.

Scale of Police Access

The revelation came amid broader scrutiny of Ring’s police partnerships. Senator Markey’s inquiry had been prompted by reports that in 2020 alone, police departments made over 20,000 requests for footage captured by Ring cameras. Ring had modified its request process in 2021, requiring police to publicly post requests through the Neighbors app rather than making private email requests directly to users, but the emergency exception allowed the company to bypass even this limited transparency measure.

Insufficient Safeguards

Senator Markey expressed deep concern about the warrantless disclosures, noting that Amazon had previously admitted to having no policies restricting how law enforcement can use Ring footage, no data security requirements for police departments, and no policies preventing officers from retaining footage indefinitely. The Electronic Frontier Foundation highlighted that “there is no process for a judge or the device owner to determine whether there actually was an emergency,” creating substantial potential for police abuse of the exception.

Fourth Amendment Implications

The admissions raised serious Fourth Amendment concerns about Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy in their homes and surrounding property. By positioning itself as an intermediary that could voluntarily provide surveillance footage to police without warrants, Ring effectively created a mechanism to circumvent constitutional protections requiring judicial authorization for government searches. Civil liberties advocates noted this represented a dangerous precedent where corporate policies, rather than constitutional standards, determined when police could access intimate surveillance of Americans’ homes and daily activities.