It was early in the morning — before 6:00 a.m. — last August when Ali Chahine woke up in his home in Detroit’s suburbs and checked his smartphone.
What happened next highlights why an increasing number of U.S. police forces are embracing Amazon’s consumer technology as a low-cost solution to help fight crime, and shunning persistent concerns over privacy and data protection.
And the debate appears to be moving north of the border.
Chahine had received an alert overnight. Around 2:40 a.m., the camera mounted on the front of his garage in Livonia, Michigan, had sensed movement and started recording.
Watching the video on his phone, Chahine could see a man rummaging through the back of his pickup truck and examining his toolbox. He left without taking anything, but Chachine suspects the man knew he was being watched.
“If it wasn’t for the camera,” Chahine said, “maybe he would have opened up the toolbox and cleared it out.”
He posted the video on social media and alerted police, who also posted it online. Within minutes, a suspect, 60-year-old Jeffrey Couch, was identified. Within hours, he was arrested in connection with a string of recent attempted car break-ins. Within a week, he pleaded no contest in court to two attempted larceny charges and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The Livonia Police Department heralded the arrest as “another example of the successful partnership” between the force, the community and Amazon’s household surveillance arm, Ring.
“It really is the Neighbourhood Watch of 2020,” Livonia Police Capt. Ron Taig said, echoing the phrase Ring uses in its advertising.
Capt. Ron Taig, with the Livonia Police Department in Michigan, shows the Neighbors portal made available to law enforcement agencies who sign agreements with Amazon’s Ring subsidiary. (Thomas Daigle/CBC)
U.S. police sign deals; Windsor wants in
Last year, Livonia PD signed a partnership with the Amazon subsidiary allowing citizens using Ring’s Neighbors app to report suspicious activity caught on surveillance. When a crime occurs, it also lets investigators request video captured within five miles (eight km) of the incident, without a warrant.
The company even provided free Ring cameras, which the police department gives away to citizens in monthly draws.
On his office computer, Taig displayed a map, accessible to Ring’s law enforcement partners, showing where users have signalled possible crimes and allowing police to respond. The notes from citizens typically come with a video taken from a Ring doorbell or another internet-connected camera.
Taig said the Ring deal has “accelerated how quickly we’re able to identify suspects,” and has directly led to arrests, including that of Couch.
Ring has signed similar deals with hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the U.S. At least one Canadian mayor wants in, too.
“I want to make sure that my police service can respond to crime efficiently, effectively, and with all the modern tools available to them,” said Mayor Drew Dilkens, of Windsor, Ont. He said he’s concerned opioid addictions have led to a string of crime in his city, which is just 33 kilometres from Livonia.
WATCH | Windsor, Ont., mayor defends proposed partnership with Ring
Drew Dilkens defends proposed deal with Amazon subsidiary 0:43
Dilkens said he’s been in touch with Ring and is eager for his city to adopt the Neighbors app once it’s rolled out north of the border. He was given no timeline, however.
A Ring spokesperson said in a statement to CBC News, “The Neighbors app is currently only available in the U.S.”
Privacy, data concerns
The police partnerships position a branch of a Silicon Valley giant as an intermediary between local authorities and citizens, letting its proprietary software act as a point of contact — leading to concerns about the way police data is handled once it’s in the hands of Ring.
Amazon already has access to a wealth of information on its users: tastes in movies and music through its streaming services, purchases from its online retail platform, not to mention the breadth of personal data that may be collected by the Alexa voice assistant.
Critics of Ring’s arrangements with police say local authorities shouldn’t be facilitating Amazon’s further acquisition of data.
“The whole system of frictionless video sharing with the police undermines most of the privacy rights that we’ve built over time,” said Bonnie Stewart, a University of Windsor education professor who studies technology’s implications for everyday life. She compared it to “building a surveillance infrastructure that looks back at us.”
The university recently hosted a public panel on the topic. Stewart said more than 70 people attended.
University of Windsor Prof. Bonnie Stewart compared Ring’s police partnerships to ‘building a surveillance infrastructure that looks back at us.’ (Sharon Wu/CBC)
Livonia Police said privacy concerns should be minimal, since doorbell cameras usually only record motion on a user’s own front porch, rather than in public areas. But Ring videos shared online point to a different reality: Many cameras, if positioned correctly, also record comings and goings on the street, or beyond the user’s property.
“Once we have opened the curtains, we can’t close them,” Stewart said. “People become accustomed to being surveilled at every level.”
In the U.S., a group of more than 30 civil rights organizations signed an open letter last fall demanding Ring’s partnerships with police be terminated, claiming the deals “threaten civil liberties, privacy and civil rights, and exist without oversight or accountability.”
Other criticisms have been far-ranging, from concerns over racial profiling to potential cybersecurity risks. Last Friday, CBS reported Ring would soon roll out tighter security settings, after it was shown to share personal information with other parties without users’ consent.
In Windsor, the mayor stressed he doesn’t want “a Big Brother state,” but pointed out police don’t have the ability to access live feeds through the Neighbors app, nor can they access video without a user’s permission.
“You have the ability to participate or not,” Dilkens said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
