Ringing in a new era of police surveillance?
By: Lara Mitra
Tags: Facial Recognition, Digital Government, Amazon, Police

Ringing in a new era of police surveillance?

Notes: This post was written for an assignment in Harvard Kennedy School course, Digital Government: Technology, Policy, and Public Service Innovation, taught by David Eaves.

In September 2020, the Chicago Police Department began a partnership with Ring on a pilot basis. For the purposes of this assignment, I am assuming that this partnership has not occurred and am analyzing the merits of embarking on one, as described in the prompt.

Issue:

Should the Chicago Police Department (CPD) partner with Ring for increased surveillance aimed at improving security and reducing crime?

Background and Context:

Crime in Chicago

Crime in Chicago has been declining since 2014. Overall crime (which includes murder, criminal sexual assault, theft, and more) declined by 9% between 2019 and 2020. Compared to 2018, overall crime fell 17% in 2020; compared to 2017, it fell 25%.

Crime down in Chicago between first half of 2020 and equivalent period in 2019. Source

Yet, on an absolute level, Chicago is still considered one of the “most dangerous cities in America,” according to a CBS news who ranked it #31 on its most dangerous cities list based on the rate of violent crime relative to other US cities. In fact, the first half of 2020 saw an increase in murders in Chicago (compared to the same period in 2019) at a rate higher than the national increase.

Chicago Police Department

After the NYPD, the CPD is the largest police department in the United States with ~12,000 officers. In 2017, the Justice Department found that the CPD used excessive force and violated civil rights after a multi-year investigation in response to the shooting of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old black boy, by a white officer. The DOJ report called for reform of the CPD, citing that “it has never been more important to rebuild trust of the police within Chicago’s neighborhoods.”

In response, the CPD committed to a number of reforms to “become more accountable to the community”, some of which are outlined in its strategic plan and include: protecting the city and its residents with proactive, focused crime-fighting strategies, and strengthening community relationships to build trust and respect.

In assessing a potential partnership between the CPD and Ring, it will be important to understand whether, and to what extent, such a partnership would further these strategic priorities of the CPD.

Ring — How it works:

Source: Ring website

Ring, owned by Amazon, has a suite of products, including doorbells and security cameras, for home surveillance. Ring users are notified when someone rings their doorbell or when security cameras sense motion. Users can then view a live feed of their surroundings and, if they desire, upload the recording to Neighbors, a social networking app that Ring developed to enable communities to share, discuss, and report suspicious activity happening around them.

Partnering with Ring enables police departments to request video footage recorded by Ring cameras; homeowners have the right to accept or decline these requests. Police do not need to obtain a warrant to make these requests for footage. Notably, Ring cameras are powerful enough to capture footage from neighboring homes “across the street and down the block,” suggesting that the property and surroundings of non-Ring customers could also be available for police to view. Thus far, Ring has partnered with over 1,300 police departments to date, according to Gov Tech.

Police Departments that partner with Ring for surveillance, 2019

Ring does not currently employ facial recognition software, though some speculate that Ring will integrate facial recognition software, like Amazon’s own Rekognition, into its offering. This would enable Ring to “compare subjects on camera with members of a database of suspicious persons,” according to Vice News.

Given the research that shows that facial recognition is significantly less accurate at identifying people of color, it would be important to consider the discriminatory effects of using Ring for law enforcement purposes and the risk of perpetuating inequality in doing so.

What problem are we trying to solve? What does success look like?

According to the CPD’s 2022 Strategic Plan, metrics of success for the CPD are:

Reducing shootings, homicides, and other violent and property crimes

Improving community sentiment

Improving clearance rate (i.e., number of crimes for which a charge is made divided by the total number of crimes recorded)

Given that the city of Chicago’s spending on police has increased over the last ten years and that Chicago spends 14.5% of its annual budget on the CPD (compared to 6% that NYC spends on NYPD), the city may also have an interest in improving CPD efficiency through reductions in cost and reductions in the burden on officers.

Though these are some of “success metrics” that the CPD and Mayor may have top of mind (as opposed to “success metrics” for the CIO), they are relevant to the CIO for understanding why the CPD and Mayor may been keen on this partnership in the first place.

Where does this all fit into the CIO’s priorities?

The Chief Information Officer of a city has two top priorities. At the most fundamental level, he / she must “keep the lights on” by ensuring that the city’s basic technology infrastructure and the applications running on that infrastructure are running and are secure. More strategically, the CIO seeks to find ways that technology and digital solutions can enable the goals of the city.

In doing so, the CIO should strive to meet the below principles:

Put the customer at the center: As Chicago’s former CIO Danielle DuMerer put it, “focus on your users — how do residents want to interact with government? What would make it easier for city employees to deliver services?” In considering implementing products and services, CIOs should consider the value created for their users and what problems are being solved.

Protect citizen privacy: Another priority of the CIO is to protect citizen privacy and ensure that robust informed consent mechanisms are in place when citizen data is being shared. Protecting citizen privacy is especially important for building trust in government, which, studies have found, is a helpful prerequisite for the adoption of social policies.

Achieve digital inclusion / equality: Chicago has been working hard to address digital inequities through initiatives like Connect Chicago and Internet to Go. New solutions that the city implements should be in line with the city’s goals of promoting equality and should be assessed to determine who wins and who loses as a result of the technology.

Ensure security of data: A survey of more than 100 US city and county CIOs and CTOs found that 93% of them consider cybersecurity and data loss a key priority for the upcoming years. CIOs must ensure that the right tools are in place to protect their citizen’s data, and the data of their city. In this case, it would be important for the CIO and his / her team to understand the security vulnerabilities associated with Ring and the ways Amazon and law enforcement can mitigate them.

In outlining the pros and cons of the CPD’s potential partnership with Ring, it will be important to understand how the partnership would advance or hinder the above principles.

Key stakeholders involved

Below is a map and a table of key stakeholders who would affected by a CPD-Ring partnership and their interests.

Stakeholder map for those affected by a CPD / Ring partnership

Key interests of each stakeholder

What conditions does a city need to have in place to successfully deploy this service?

Product adoption / penetration: For this partnership to be successful, there must be a significant number of Ring devices being used in Chicago so that police can gather useful data. User trust: Ultimately, users have the right to choose whether or not data from their Ring devices can be accessed by the CPD. Therefore, the effectiveness of the partnership is dependent on users allowing the CPD access to their footage, which is reliant on user trust in government, law enforcement, and technology companies. Robust cybersecurity: Robust cybersecurity measures must be in place to prevent bad actors from hacking into Ring and accessing the video footage of millions of homeowners. A police force that is on board: Success of the program depends on the CPD’s support of it and willingness to commit to using it to further their law enforcement efforts. Oversight mechanisms: The city must have strong management and oversight capabilities to monitor how the technology is being deployed and utilized to ensure there is no misuse, discrimination, or other issues.

The next section will analyze the above criteria, and others highlighted previously in this memo, to assess the main benefits and risks associated with the CPD’s potential partnership with Ring, especially one that may include a facial recognition component in the future.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Potential to improve efficiency of the CPD:

According to the Senior Research Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, “there is a large body of evidence that conclusively shows that more police resources and manpower does reduce crime.” With access to the footage that Ring captures, the CPD would save time from not having to go door-to-door canvassing for information, effectively increasing their “manpower.”

Would complement existing efforts and practices:

Even without the Ring partnership, the city of Chicago has the “largest network of surveillance cameras in the country,” according to the Chicago Sun Times. Citizens and businesses are already able to feed video from their network of 45,000 cameras to the CPD for crime fighting purposes. Therefore, some could argue that a partnership with Ring wouldn’t be all that different from current practice and simply serve to enhance the processes that are already in place.

National surveys indicate some public support:

According to a 2019 survey by Pew Research, “more than half of U.S. adults trust law enforcement to use facial recognition responsibly,” suggesting potential public support for a CPD-Ring partnership, even if facial recognition is ultimately integrated into the existing technology. However, while 56% of US adults say they trust law enforcement agencies “a great deal” or “somewhat” to use facial recognition technology responsibly, only 36% trust technology companies to do the same. Therefore, Amazon’s involvement in this process may detract from public support.

Financing mechanism may make this cost effective for the CPD and the city:

Based on the stats mentioned earlier about the relatively high proportion of Chicago’s budget going to the CPD, it is in the best interest of the city to find solutions that are cost-effective. A CPD-Ring partnership may be one. The business model is such that the financial burden is on citizens themselves to purchase the cameras and surveillance system, not the police, which could save the city money. Of course there are potential financial costs for the city associated with the partnership (e.g., cybersecurity, legal), which are discussed in the “cons” section.

Could help facilitate a culture of collective crime prevention:

Radd Rotello, an officer in Frisco, Texas’s Police Department, has attributed Frisco’s partnership with Ring with increase awareness and vigilance for crime prevention. The same pattern could occur in Chicago, which, in the long-run could help reduce crime by creating a culture of vigilance.

Cons:

Ring’s partnerships with other police departments reveal potential for public backlash:

As mentioned earlier, in response to backlash the CPD has received over the years, the CPD has committed to a number of reforms to “become more accountable to the community.” This partnership has the potential to worsen the CPD’s relationships with the community. In other cities that have partnered with Ring, there has been public backlash. Media coverage with headlines such as “Amazon Is Coaching Cops on How to Obtain Surveillance Footage Without a Warrant” and “Amazon is more cozy with the police than you might realize” doesn’t help. However more worrying is the long-term implications of public backlash on trust in government. Deteriorating trust in the city government could make it extremely difficult for Chicago to roll out public initiative in the future, especially those that rely on citizens to adopt them to be effective. Nationally, trust in government has been declining at alarming rates. In 1972, 70 percent of Americans expressed a “great deal” or “fair” amount of confidence in the federal government on managing domestic problems. In 2019, the figure was between 40–50%. In 2020, a Pew study found that only 20% of U.S. adults say they trust the government to “do the right thing” just about always or most of the time. In this environment, it would be particularly risky to implement programs that the public may see as infringing on their rights.

Partnership risks threatening civil liberties; infringes on privacy and informed consent:

The CPD would not need a warrant to request footage from Ring cameras. Further, police can get footage of people who don’t even own Ring based on their neighbors’ feed. This raises questions about whether the CPD would be bypassing regulation (i.e., the need to obtain a warrant) that is aimed at protecting citizens’ civil liberties. Further, it would be important to understand what policies the CPD has in place to ensure that the police are not using the data they receive for purposes beyond solving crime to mitigate the risk for “scope creep.”

Too much power to Ring?:

As David Eaves has stated, “whoever controls the servers, controls the government.” This may hold true in Ring’s partnerships with police departments. In working with police departments, Ring has implemented strict guidelines about what police departments can and cannot do and say. There is a strict PR arrangement in which police department communications about Ring have to be approved by Ring first. Ring provides police departments with “standardized comments… and scripted responses.” This type of relationship is dangerous for Chicago’s integrity and is worsened by the fact that regulating tech platforms (like Neighbors) is extremely difficult.

Risk of perpetuating discrimination and racial inequity:

Who is worse off as a result of this partnership? One group may be people belonging to minority groups. According to Vice news, “racial profiling is prevalent on Neighbors,” on which people of color are disproportionately tagged as “suspicious” by users based on analysis by Motherboard. Further, given the research that shows that facial recognition is significantly less accurate at identifying people of color, the integration of facial recognition technology could worsen the discriminatory effects of using Ring for law enforcement purposes and the risk of perpetuating inequality in doing so.

Provides a surface area for cyberattacks:

Ring is considered an “Internet of Things” (IoT) product. Deploying hundreds of thousands of cameras in a given city increases the potential surface area for attack. Dave Maass, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said “We’ve seen over the years that IoT devices — specifically web cameras and CCTV cameras — have proven very rich targets for malicious actors.” Further, the Unit 42 IoT Report of 2020 (which analyzed 1.2 M IoT devices across the US between 2018 and 2019) found that “98% of all IoT device traffic is unencrypted, exposing personal and confidential data on the network,” and “57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks, making IoT the low-hanging fruit for attackers.” If the CPD is dragged into the aftermath of a hack on Ring devices in Chicago, it could have high costs for the city — financial and reputational.

Opens up the CPD to legal action:

As of October 2019, 30 civil rights organizations demanded that mayors and city council members “require their local police departments to cancel their Ring partnerships.” In subsequent months, and especially if / when facial recognition technology is added into the equation, the CPD could face more scrutiny and legal pressure based on their relationship with Ring. These litigations could cost the city millions of dollars; in 2018, Chicago spent more than $113M on lawsuits related to police misconduct.

Open questions and hypotheses to test:

Before reaching a final decision, I recommend that the office of the CIO return to a few questions raised earlier in this memo and test the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: There are a sufficient number of Ring users in Chicago to make a partnership worthwhile / useful for the CPD.

How to test? Though Ring has millions of customers nationwide, understand the magnitude of Ring usage in Chicago by either asking Ring for the data, or extrapolating based on data from other large cities.

Hypothesis 2: Chicago residents approve of and are excited about the CPD’s partnership with Ring. They trust the CPD and Ring with their data.

How to test? This can be done through direct conversations with end users through interviews, for example. In the case of the potential CPD-Ring partnership, the “users” from the CIO’s perspective would be Chicago policemen as well as Chicago residents. It may also be helpful to speak with residents and policemen from other cities which have partnered with Ring to see how their experience has been.

Hypothesis 3: The CPD has a robust process in place for storing Ring data securely and deleting it at regular intervals. There are oversight mechanisms in place to prevent misuse of data.

How to test? Review of past, comparable digital projects that the CPD has undertaken. How was citizen data stored and privacy upheld? Does the CPD have a track record of success in this space? Are there open questions?

Hypothesis 4: A CPD-Ring partnership would lead to a reduction in crime and improvement in CPD’s ability to fight crime. This last hypothesis is more in the purview of the CPD (as opposed to the CIO), but it would be important to understand the effectiveness of Ring and its potential future facial recognition capabilities on reducing crime (which is one of the CPD’s strategic priorities, as discussed earlier).

How to test? Analyze data from comparable cities whose police forces have embarked on a partnership with Ring. Did they experience reductions in crime or improvements in the clearance rate of crimes after working with Ring? Were changes attributable to Ring with a medium to high degree of confidence?

Recommendation:

Based on this assessment I would recommend that the CIO does not support a partnership between the CPD and Ring, as the cons outweigh the pros. To be more specific, there are a few “killer” cons, which lead to my recommendation of “do not pursue,” which are: the risk of perpetuating discrimination, the potential infringement on civil liberties, and the increased power that Amazon would hold over the CPD (and therefore the city of Chicago). Further, given that the CPD is trying to mend its relationship with the public and foster trust and transparency, a CPD-Ring partnership could have an especially detrimental affect on the CPD’s vision of becoming a “model police agency for the nation.” Of course, the results from the hypothesis testing would be important to consider, though I do not believe they will tip the scale in favor of pursuing the partnership.

Implementation:

Successful implementation of this recommendation entails the CIO effectively convincing the CPD and the city not to pursue this partnership. This will require a few immediate actions for the CIO: