yep Amazon is working with over 50 US police departments to get more Ring
products out on the market and really get them into homes now there are tons
of news reports out there about this right now but we're not just going to
talk about the news today we are going to talk about whether or
not this is just good business by Amazon and we're also going to talk about what
the best thing is to do for our communities with this
hello Automaters thanks for tuning in again now I'm not about to go and grab
my protest signs and go scream from rooftops but it is time I think to have
the right conversation about what's going on here
so what's happening well we know how good Amazon is at creating business
selling products getting their products out there and cornering markets taking
them over and creating what is near monopoly is what they've done is they've
started to partner with 50 different police departments around the u.s. what
they do is they kind of hand them a few free cameras the number I've been
hearing is 15 to some of these departments and then they can go out and
give those out however they'd like police are mostly raffling them off and
giving them a way to people from there police are incentivized through what is
essentially a commission system so every time they get someone to sign up for the
neighbors app in their area their district they're getting $10 towards as
a police department credit towards another Ring doorbell that they can go
and give away now thinking about this from the perspective of the police this
makes a lot of sense for them they're getting another tool they're getting
access to the footage that is available and can therefore utilize this to catch
more criminals from the average person's perspective it's a free camera doorbell
so of course they're going to like that but there's also this other component of
it coming from the police and the police we have all of this trust in or
most of us have all of this trust in and so there's this component of this is
a trusted person handing me a device to put into my home not only that but it
feels like a win because they are often raffled off so these people are not just
getting a free camera they're winning something from Amazon's perspective I
mean this is clear they give out a free a few free products and they gain like
an entire workforce for free the police are now out there promoting their
application they're promoting their products they're giving away their
products and creating positive press there's a lot to win here from Amazon
and we're not even talking about the subscription service that people will
then probably buy for these cloud cams where this starts to get gray and
concerning for me is that essentially this is now the police using their
hard-earned public trust to put Amazon's products in the marketplace and you know
it's a commission system here so you could get to the point here in this
discussion where you might say that's you know corporate corruption within a
public body there's a debate to be had there don't get me wrong it's great that
the police get access to new tools new capabilities for catching these
criminals but I wonder about the cost-benefit analysis I mean how
much is it actually costing our police on an hourly basis or what's the hourly
cost for putting Amazon's products in people's home what I would rather see is
more of the program that was reported out of what's called Fort Collins
Colorado it's called the patio patrol program and really all this is is for
people who have security systems outside their home they have security cameras
and they have this ability to give police footage they can go in willingly
or voluntarily register for a database in their area and that means that police
can reach out when they'd like to and request footage not vendor-specific so
it's not only Amazon's cameras it could be any cameras it also leaves the user
entirely in control of their data and whether or
not they give out those clips and they can do it from these systems that make
it almost instantaneous so the police can ask you do or do not have to respond
and it's simply just you know share the video with someone someone's email now
the next thing to talk about is having all of these cameras in a public space
you know I don't know if you guys have noticed but there's a lot of people
walking around that look like zombies and they just kind of walk around like
this sometimes they even drive that way and you know I think those devices have
a camera on it although they're always pointed at the ground but those cameras
are all there you think about all these businesses that are out there they all
have cameras in them and we've accepted those for years really what the
difference is is people are putting them on their homes to protect their own
assets so you know what really that to me is a non-issue and I truly think the
benefits of monitoring outweigh the drawbacks to our privacy especially in
the public space I think the average person and you know for myself here
really I'm not that worried if there's a camera they're catching me getting my
groceries I really don't care that much yes the government might know but to be
honest I don't think the government cares whether or not I went to church on
Sunday there's one thing that I read as I go through these different reports
that's really funny to me you you hear these concerns about well the police
will start hunting for criminal activity and they'll be finding ways to find
people doing things wrong well in that scenario arm we had a bit of a utopia
spot where the police have kind of well they're bored and they have nothing to
do and we're that lucky I mean you know to be honest this is not a scenario that
I'm really concerned about because at that point I think we start to scale
back the police force really it sounds like a good problem to have
in my opinion regulation absolutely should be put in place to stop companies
like Amazon from getting a public funded entity like the police out there as
their sales commission force let's be honest that should not be going on it
shouldn't be allowed what should happen instead is programs like that patio
Patrol program that I talked about that's absolutely something that I think
we should work together with police on it's not one company specific and it can
be well within the public domain and allows people to cooperate with the
police increases trust not reduces it please share this video let's get this
pointed in the right direction in all of our communities this is a really
important conversation that I think we do need to have about surveillance
privacy all of those things so let's get this pointed in the right direction in
our local communities otherwise guys don't hate, Automate