A hot irish potato: Amazon Band'south partnerships with police and burn departments that allow them to request users' security photographic camera footage has brought plenty of controversies. Simply the visitor isn't slowing downwardly the program—quite the opposite. A new report reveals that 1,189 departments joined concluding year, bringing the total to 2,014.

The Financial Times reports that the number of local constabulary and fire departments added to Ring'south Neighbors Portal plan in 2022 was more than double the 703 new additions from a year earlier. In 2022, but xl signed upward. At that place are at present simply two states in which no departments participate: Wyoming and Montana.

Police and fire services taking part in the program requested videos for more than than 22,235 incidents last year. Amazon notes that customers tin can opt-out of receiving requests from police, but subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders can still be used to access footage from users opting to deny requests.

Police fabricated 1,900 requests for data that users had denied to them, and Amazon, which has the final say on whether to paw anything over, agreed to 57 percent of these. While that's lower than the 67 percent it complied with during 2022, the number of these requests increased 150 percent in 2022.

The Electronic Borderland Foundation (EFF) has warned that while some owners may be okay with sharing their footage, information technology's possible that neighbors and passers-past could be caught on camera, essentially creating a "massive and unchallenged" surveillance network.

Those unconcerned almost the program's privacy aspects might feel safer knowing police take another tool in their armory, but an NBC News study from February 2022 establish information technology wasn't beneficial when investigating astringent crimes—most of the arrests that used Band footage were for depression-level, non-fierce property crimes.