Big Brother just got an upgrade. Starting December, Amazon’s Ring cameras will scan and recognize faces. Don’t want to be in their database? Too bad — walk past a Ring and your face can be stored...

Maybe we should bring back covid masks as a privacy/fashion statement now?

Sorry, that's illegal now
876.12 Wearing mask, hood, or other device on public way.—No person or persons over 16 years of age shall, while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter upon, or be or appear upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, highway, or other public way in this state.
It's part of the big campaign to disrupt criminal anarchy, treason, and other crimes against public order
I always thought of them as a privacy aid.

Does anyone have an actual source? A twitter link to a screenshot of another twitter post collage is bullshit sourcing.

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=ring+face+recognition
By doing that you end up with sources like
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/03/amazon-ring-doorbell-facial-recognition-pricacy/
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/ring-cameras-can-now-recognize-faces-and-help-to-find-lost-pets/
Please don't be that lazy in the future, the knowledge is literally at the tips of your fingers, you just need to reach out.

We should make dazzle makeup standard when going outside. It's the perfect fashion trend for today.

Luckily I live somewhere where they will have to hide it

This isn't legal where I live. It's not allowed to record public spaces

Same here. All private cameras that record or process data from a public space need to be announced on entrance of a property. Though now that i think about it, idk how ring got passed that law to begin with in 99% of its use cases..
( if its a front door that can only view private property its fine iirc, and if it has public space like roads its a nono )
- Same as non-legal ebikes perhaps? Where I live the police don't seem to care unless the rider happens to be a drug dealer or otherwise wanted by the police.
  I'd take a guess that while a ring doorbell might be illegal and not enforced, it probably means the recorded footage might be not accepted in court if ever needed... Perhaps (I'm not a lawyer or even close to being an expert). Unless a doorbell inspector becomes a thing then it probably just slides.
- idk how ring got passed that law to begin with in 99% of its use cases
  It doesn't comply... but the responsibility falls on the person who mounts/uses the hardware, so Amazon does whatever they want.
I was gonna say, I’m not sure this would hold up to legal scrutiny, not that that makes it ok in the first place.

Ran into this one Halloween a few years ago. Fuckers had Halloween decorations out, seeming welcoming, and when my kid went up to the door they used their ring camera to make fun of him. Once society falls in the next year or two, that's where I'm going first.

For legal reasons, he jusut told me in PM that he will go there to get more candy. He will take ALL their candy and EAT it in front of the ring camera.

So what happens to images of your face when they're stored? Who tf really knows. We do know these oligarchs will literally try to exploit and profit from literally anything and everything they get access to.

Some countries that aren't treated like a state run corporation are actually letting citizens copyright their own faces for their protection.

Dutch MPs want citizens to own the copyright to their faces

Uploaded to a database. Linked to your meta data full of wrong think. Face blown off by a AI built and operated kamakazi drone.
Sucks to be anyone that looks like you, but that is a price the 1% are willing to pay for complete control. Because what's left after you own all the wealth and assets?
probably to use your face in AI image generation of a person.

I really don't care what Amazon does with Ring's facial recognition. The populace doesnt give a fuck and trust me, I tried to give a damn but its like going up against a tide of stupidity that keeps smashing. No one bats an eye with Costco/WalMart/Target facial recognition software, let alone caring enough how companies like Apple sell your data or manipulate your wants/needs down to the pervasive marketing tactics that are threading the line of psyops.

Idiocracy came a lot sooner than expected and there is no closing that Pandora's box. I still try to refrain from and mask my digital footprint, but sadly with how how easily our data is passed around like a ladyboy aboard a navy ship, we're doomed

target is a given, they probably had it for a decade+ to catch shoplifters who hit multiple stores.

Americans are fucking weird, they piss and moan about speed and red light cameras, and claim they are unconstitutional. However, the Ring shit is good to go.

Ring cameras don't toss a fine at you for walking past them too quickly.
Also, where are people complaining about red light cameras, so I can avoid taking my bike or car anywhere near there? It's probably a vocal minority, but I'd prefer to know and cover my ass. Just in case.
- Nah Ring cameras will just toss police to your door because you look loosely like a person of interest in a case.
  Good think police visiting houses doesn't lead to the death of innocent people on the regular.
- So just people can't perceive longer term costs. Damn the government can decrease this backlash so much by just billing from their liability insurance directly instead of sending the fine to the person.
- they even have speed cameras now, any slightly above the speed limit of a street will imediately give a warning, and fine if it occurs multiple times. you can easily accidentally go over like 5 miles above in an empty street.

I don't know if it is the same brand, but my morning walks are cheered on by an increasing chorus/wave of "hello, you are currently being recorded". Weird dystopian vibes.

That's so creepy!

We need an anti-camera movement in this country

Or go all-in.
"The courts might not work anymore, but as long as everybody is video taping everyone else, justice will be done." - Marge Simpson
I don't really think cameras are all that bad, the bad thing is the centralization. If someone is willing to record local-only for their own security I see nothing wrong with that.
I need camera in my bedroom to give back for all the porn I watched.
Bring back masking.
Add it to the list of shit we desperately need yesterday

We need to normalize spray painting the lenses on these things, as well as painting "big brother" on doorways of those that own them. If you enable fascism, you should expect some minor vandalism.

You could start by sending them a letter that informs them of this occuring and how it impacts the world around them before you skip straight to vandalism. I'm sure a lot of people just never considered the extent of that data that is being shared so much as they figured only they would have access to the footage.
- Ugh... Idiots ruin everything. How can people not understand this? Just so fucking ignorant
- Sure, but then you're a suspect.

And you're always seen as a "weirdo" or "crazy" or maybe even a thief if you want to opt out with a mask.

just tell them you’re ice

Great, my downstairs neighbor has one of these things that everyone has to walk by when going in or out of the main building. Why she needs one in an apartment building with a locked main door that you have to unlock yourself for guests is a mystery to me.

Simple - Because she doesn't trust the strangers living in the building any more than the strangers on the outside. I don't blame her one bit. In my lifetime, I've seen countless stories of women being raped and/or murdered by other tenants and the complex 's own security.
In the olden days, before electricity, I used to be friendly with a neighbor, and she became convinced that someone was sneaking into her apartment when she was at work, and stealing her underwear and prescription meds. She took a day off because she was under the weather, and one of the maintenance guys, who was always overly-friendly, unlocked her door, and walked right in.
It turned out that he'd been warned about this before, and he was fired. But if she, or other neighbors, had Ring cameras, they would have caught on to him immediately.
- A camera inside her apartment would have the same results without invading the privacy of every other tenant in the building.
- In the olden days, before electricity, I used to ...
  Are you like 200 years old?
- Fair enough. My downstairs neighbor can get a doorbell cam that records locally then.
- Why did a maintenance guy have access to her home?

My parents have one of these. 💀

Guess I'll be going into their place through the garage lmao

If they have more than one and you can’t avoid them all …. The press release says they will be able to trace your route on the property

The problem is Amazon has this. I don lt care if my neighbors do this. But random corporations should not be involved.

I'm losing my mind. Ring cameras everywhere, Flock cameras, ID/face verification, everything Google touches, airports, Tesla car cameras, every modern car actually, Meta glasses, Chat Control every year, the OSA, stores using facial recognition (and other tracking), social media billionaire shenanigans, Samsung installing Israeli spyware and putting ads on the fridges, fuck even the Windows 11+Chrome+iPhone combo I see in public. I could keep going. We could all keep going.

It's too much. Idk anymore. This post broke me a little.

PREACH WTF SERIOUSLY
I'm rapidly approaching the point where I go completely feral and begin smashing every advertisement and camera I see. Smashing large billboard screens and smearing shit on walls. Just to tear this monstrosity to the ground.
- I wouldn't advise you to smash cameras but it would make you my hero
I am Italian and I have much fewer reasons to feel like you, but I still do and, although loving the friends I made there, I know I will never again set foot in the USA, since this comes from a culture of surveillance dating back more than a century.
I am actually offering temporary accomodation to any of my friends who may want to try his luck in the EU.
- The UK has a CCTV facial recognition system that's quite massive, we've resisted such programs for the most part (a few cities have them but they're not linked together).
  So it's not like Europe is free of this.
  Here most of our camera systems are for our own use only, not for the government, with this giant exception.
- Willing to host a small family from the US that absolutely loves your country?
Same here. My landlord has security cameras (possibly option activated so they turn on only when people are in the hallways) in all corridors. This means I simply cannot leave my own apartment without being caught on camera, and there are so many cameras in my neighborhood that it is insane. Almost all (if not all) are private, but fuck me...

This feels like it should be illegal in the EU.

Swede here, our laws disallow private security cameras from filming public areas.
The law is so broad that it interfered with dashcams, disallowing them for years.
- Same in Italy, minus the dashcam part
- Same in Belgium, and Tesla is even having issues with it's "sentinel" feature being ruled illegal 🙏
- It is more specific in France, but I actually dug around regulations a year ago when the other homeowners in my building wanted to install a security camera. The common parts of a residential building are considered somewhere in between public and private.
  The short version is you need majority approval, the tape can only be accessed if something happens, you can't film apartments doors or windows and as few people as possible may have access. Which put quite a damper on my neighbours who were already celebrating how they would watch who enters and leaves the building at all times.
  Bunch of fucking weirdos.
- I wish we had more protection in the UK. Technically the law allows filming public property as long as it is not the direct focus, eg you film your front door and catch some of the street. But it's not policed at all. Living on a terraced main road I cant leave my house without being filmed by at least 5 different neighbour's cameras from a range of different American or Chinese companies. One camera literally just points towards a window of my own home. It's insane, I feel like they're all just standing outside watching me.
  Technically, I have the right to ask to see the footage they record and ask for adjustments to angles etc, but it's left to individuals to do. I'd have to have an awkward individual conversation with a bunch of strangers (sad but true) about something I doubt they even consider an issue.
  I'd love to see some legislation that would require some publically accessible way to review what's in camera for doorbell cams, but I guess that would just be seen as helping criminals.
- That's really interesting. Is it specifically security cameras?
  Can you generally take videos of people in public places? Photos?
- do public seccurity cameras exist though? In the US, we have cameras watching the movement of cars thru the road network via license plate. It's dystopian
I believe this is also illegal in some US States. I know of at least a couple that don't allow biometric data to be stored without concent; I think Facebook even lost a case in one state and had to pay a pretty large sum of money.
It most certainly is. There's no way they're implementing this here.
- there's no way
  What. You gonna make em? Once the data's on their servers, they'll do what they want.
  Unless you physically disallow and destroy their hardware that's invaded your continent.
Will it happen in Europe too?
- This cannot happen in EU with the current GDPR, they would need to request and receive consent prior to collecting the face.

Pray this isn't legal in the UK, under GDPR i don't think so but I'm not sure

Guess US-companies don't really care what's legal and what's not. They don't fear the repercussions of doing illegal shit. They just pay their fine - or they don't and nothing changes.
GDPR states that saving personal data without consent is illegal and on top you have the right to be deleted and forgotten. I am not even allowed to have a none recording camera sending the image from in front of my door because the space in front of my door is not my private property.
- Pretty sure you can record and photograph people from public spaces without seeking consent here (UK) because there's no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Not in Illinois it won't. The states attorney will have Amazon for lunch.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_Act

In EU this is also illegal

Given any large database this is going to be a massive problem.

Did someone steal your package?

Do you want to know who did it?

Will you settle for knowing which of the 385 people in the country look like your villain? Some of them may even be close enough to be falsely accused!

Would the police do anything about it even if you had 100% irrefutable proof of who did it? Would you settle for Amazon displaying to those 385 people in your town that sort of look like the thief ads for tools that would make it easier to break into your home?
- There are factual existing cases of someone being tried and losing months of their life due to facial recognition wherein the accused wasn't in the same town as the crime. When the authorities are handled sufficiently gift wrapped cases here is bob bob did wrong here's the video they often DO pursue them because 95% of such cases are a charging document arrest and plea bargain. In this phase we regularly ask people to choose between probation or a short sentence and being threatened with being punished with 20 years for defending themselves. Sometimes innocent people actually cop a please to avoid their life being destroyed.
  Whilst in theory people may be entitled to a lawyer they may either not qualify because they aren't poor enough or may not get actual representation without spending thousands of dollars people simply don't have.
  Creating a whole host of such cases could be a disaster.

Need to normalise IR and UV LED strobe flares, blind those CCDs.

UV??? That'll just damage our eyes, please don't encourage that. IR, 100%
"In other news, the Trump administration has expanded the powers of the FCC. No more will antifa terrorists be allowed to assault private businesses with radiation."
- THEY WANT TO TRANS YOUR DOORBELL
There has to be a way to make one that is powerful enough to blind the cameras but not damage eyes.
- IR

Can't we make necklaces of intense IR radiation that block out our faces? Or does that not work anymore?

This is what I want. To be able to put on a hat and sunglasses and have it obscure me.
Oh!!! Or suits like in A Scanner Darkly!!!
Not for nefarious reasons, I'm pretty boring. It's the principle of the thing.
A balaklava and a can of spray paint would be cheaper and more effective.
- Well one of these things is undetectable to the naked eye and the other is a costume for being arrested
- So would a good arm and a Molotov cocktail.
I was discussing this on another post, of using a 5w invisible laser to burn sensors, with auto focal point distance sensor + ai camera detection, to render them useless but there is a ton of dangers to doing this.
Nah, Project Farm tested a bunch of doorbells out, most of them still worked surprisingly well even with a flashlight pointed directly at them in the dark.

Pretty sure this will be illegal in Illinois too

2 years later: “Amazon settles lawsuit with state of Illinois for 3 toothpicks and a stick of gum after profiting eleventy trillion dollars from breaking the law. Amazon admits no fault in the settlement.”
- I wonder if the owner will be responsible. Go around to every house you can find and then sue each owner.

I’m very happy with my ubiquiti doorbell. It records to a local NVR on my network. No cloud for this guy!

I’ve been telling anyone that will listen about my ubiquiti setup. Storing the video data locally is the only scenario that I’m comfortable with. I can still remotely log into my network and check camera footage, but no one else has access to it.
- Ubiquity has been awesome. I’m running a cloud gateway max and a single U7 pro wall AP. It was $400 all the networking stuff, and $300 for the doorbell. The doorbell was a little steep, but you gotta remember there’s no subscription. And after trying a bunch of AP/routers, $400 is honestly a great value for the quality of the networking gear. And I have a ton of headroom for upgrades in the future.
  I’ve heard ubiquiti support isn’t the best for professional installments, but in the home, it’s been fantastic.
You have my attention... Does it have a good / comparable app that you can use to view recordings?
- The iOS app is decent, and the web interface is excellent imo. Web has better search. I think the AI computer vision stuff performs slightly worse than Ring. E.g. package detection is pretty good but not great. However, pretty impressive considering everything is running locally. I think they have some dedicated hardware now for running local computer vision stuff that likely performs better.

I went to my sister's house yesterday, she lived in a gated community and to visit i have to let them take a picture of my face and then scan the cam for access. i thought that's extremely obnoxious. This is far worst.

Yeah, no. I'd be inviting my sister to visit me instead.
- Yeah this has to be super inconvenient for the residents. I imagine many delivery services, DoorDash, instacart, will refuse to do this bullshit. Forcing the resident to meet them at the gate, or just not receive service at all. I would be pressuring my HOA to end this policy.
- you're assuming she is allowed to leave
- I'd be saying I was an only child.
that’d be a nope from me

Set anything with a ring camera on it on fire. It is the enemy.

Edward Snowden may say (in reality he says to desolder and add manual switches to mics and cameras):
FTFY
Set anything with a camera and mic on it on fire. It is the enemy.
- It's much harder to disperse and admit to using the camera in my phone than that you illicitly accessed.

walk fast, carry stickers

Like I needed more reasons to never leave the fucking house.

Welcome to the basement
- "Mr. xxce2AAb, are you home?"
  "Uh... No!"
Wear your balaclava, get your spray paints

"One step closer?" Good one. Total surveillance is already here and has been for a while.
This Ring fuckery just makes it even more convenient for ~~fascists~~ law enforcement to find you.

Reading the ring press release, I have to admit the features look useful. I wouldn’t mind a better way to know whether it’s someone I care about before I bother checking. Most unexpected doorbell ringers are solicitors that I don’t want to waste time with

They’re also coming out in December and there is not yet a way to disable that feature for privacy.

For those who care about their own privacy walking down the street …. Unless houses are very tight to the street, you should be more concerned with the higher resolution models also being released. We did have an incident where police asked me if I would check the camera and not only could I not identify the person, it was hard to tell they were a person (the idiots said “oh that was us, based on jacket color”) but my point is that with the limited resolution of current cameras, no one is identifying you unless you get pretty close. And it’s much worse at night. The new high resolution models may change that

Yeah manipulative corporate propaganda makes their product sound great, useful and perfectly safe and normal. Why would you even bother reading that? It's anti-information and rots the brain.

Awesome. Theres a couple right across the road from me with one of those things. Bet they dont take it down... cunts.

Nothing a decent laser can't fix.

My face is in all the databases, sadly.

if meta, google can do it, why cant amazon.

Good point, we should stop them too.