Don't be a creep with your Ring doorbell or Nest security camera. Follow these steps.
The short version: The Washington Post's Geoffrey Fowler offers etiquette tips for doorbell cameras, but the bigger story is how these private cameras feed police surveillance networks.
Our Take
Credit to Geoffrey A. Fowler and the Washington Post for treating doorbell cameras as what they are: a privacy question, not just a gadget review. His advice — angle your camera away from your neighbor's windows, don't record audio you wouldn't want recorded of you — is good, basic etiquette. But etiquette only gets you so far when the real issue isn't your neighbor's feelings, it's who else has access to that footage.
Ring in particular has spent years building direct pipelines to police departments, and Flock Safety has built an entire business model on turning private cameras and license plate readers into a shared surveillance grid that cops can query without a warrant in a lot of cases. The etiquette conversation is worth having, but it's a distraction if it stops at 'don't point your camera at your neighbor's bedroom' and never gets to 'do you know which government agencies can pull your driveway footage, and why.'
That's the gap we try to fill. Doorbell cams are one piece of a much bigger automated surveillance puzzle that now includes ALPR cameras on street corners, gas stations, and neighborhood entrances. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and visit take action if you want to push back on it.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Washington Post, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.