Amazon’s Ring added over 1,000 police departments to its Neighbors Portal program in 2020

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

It’s no secret that Amazon’s Ring works with police departments around the country through its Neighbors Portal program, but it seems police departments really got onboard with the video doorbells in 2020.

According to a new report from Financial Times, Ring added more fire and police departments in 2020 than ever before. According to the report, over 1,189 were added in 2020, bringing the total agencies in the program up to 2,014.

That’s a large increase over the 704 departments added in 2019 and the 40 added in 2018 and really shows the momentum the program is gaining. Every state now has participating agencies, except for Montana and Wyoming.

Ring’s Neighbors Portal allows police to request footage from your video doorbell. It’s also possible to opt-out of requests, but as you can see below, it doesn’t always matter.

The FT report notes that police asked Ring owners for information from Ring cameras over 22,000 times. Additionally, Ring data shows that law enforcement agencies made approximately 1,900 requests for subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders from camera owners that denied information requests. Even after owners denied the request, Amazon worked with them 57% of the time by providing footage.

So, yeah, if you have a Ring camera, just know that there is a growing chance that you are working with police, whether you like it or not.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Tim Cook absolutely buried Facebook in a recent speech about data privacy
• Zuckerberg says Apple is now one of Facebook’s biggest competitors and they are now the victim
• This terrible timeline might mean that Amazon will help with vaccine distribution
• Ring is back with a new, smaller video doorbell that will only set you back $60