UK launch defers Ring’s police footage-request feature from US version
Amazon’s Ring doorbell-camera unit plans to make its Neighbours community messaging app available in the UK from 21 October, free inside the existing Ring app and accessible to anyone regardless of whether they own Ring hardware, the company said. The service is intended as a modern equivalent of a community message board, where neighbours can post about safety, community matters or lost pets.
Dave Ward, Ring’s managing director of international, said the product is meant to fill a gap left by the disappearance of physical community notice boards and the noise of large WhatsApp and Facebook groups. “We used to have the village noticeboard, but as things have changed we no longer have that local connection,” Ward said. “Instead what you see in WhatsApp or other services is quite a broad-stroked flood of information, the bins being left out, that sort of thing. It’s a big group that ends up getting muted.”
“We’re trying to tailor this down to just the things that really matter to your immediate community and then it becomes super useful,” Ward said.
Users who join the service set their address and a radius of between 0.1 and five miles to define their local community. Posts will be anonymised and grouped into categories, and must conform to a set of guidelines barring illegal content, discrimination, speculation and additional conditions the company did not enumerate. Content can be shared from Ring doorbells and other cameras, and posts are moderated by AI and humans both before and after they are published.
Asked how Ring plans to keep the service from devolving into the broad noise of WhatsApp groups, Ward said the platform will coach users on their posts. “We are going to coach people to make sure they’re creating the right sort of post, asking them if that’s really something they want to write or whether they really need that descriptive term, to help stop the type of content no one wants to see and make more community focused. That’s very different to other places [such as WhatsApp groups],” Ward said.
Two features available in the United States will not launch immediately in the UK. Neighbours Verified allows entities such as the local fire brigade to post advisory messages to local communities. Community Requests allows police to issue calls for footage from Ring cameras in a local area in response to incidents, with footage shared on an opt-in, per-event basis; the police are not informed of those who choose not to share.
Community Requests has drawn the most ire from privacy campaigners, according to the Guardian’s reporting. Both features are being developed for release in the UK but not until later this year at the earliest.
To address privacy concerns, Ring recently announced a new default encryption mechanism for camera footage called TAKE — throw away the key encryption. The feature provides Ring’s systems with time-limited access to recordings, blocking the company and others from accessing the videos after 24 hours. Further processing or access, including by law enforcement, requires user consent to issue replacement 24-hour keys from the user’s Ring app.
The UK launch will also include a feature called “Search Party for Dogs,” which allows users who have lost a pet to post an image and report. Neighbours with Ring cameras and a suitable cloud subscription can opt in to join the search, receive notifications if their cameras detect a dog, and optionally share the video with the pet owner.
Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 in a deal reportedly worth more than $1bn.