Amazon’s Ring has teamed up with over 2,000 police and fire departments

Posted on 31/01/2021 by Engadget

Ring’s police collaborations didn’t slow down in 2020 despite controversies — if anything, they ramped up. The Financial Times reports that the Amazon-owned smart home security brand now has 2,014 police and fire department partnerships in the US, wi...

Man sues police over a facial recognition-related wrongful arrest

Posted on 29/12/2020 by Engadget

A New Jersey man is suing the town of Woodbridge and its police department after he was falsely arrested following an incorrect facial recognition match. Nijeer Parks spent 10 days in jail last year, including a week in "functional solitary confineme...

Police used facial recognition to identify a Lafayette Square protester

Posted on 02/11/2020 by Engadget

In the aftermath of the Lafayette Square protests in June, police in Washington DC used facial recognition technology to identify a protestor who had allegedly punched an officer in the face. They found the man after feeding an image of him they foun...

FBI sent a team to ‘exploit’ Portland protesters’ phones

Posted on 10/10/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

Federal agents tend to focus their phone cracking efforts on terrorists, but they appear to have shifted their attention to civil disobedience. NYR Daily has learned that the FBI sent its “Fly Team” counterterrorism unit to Portland in mid-July to co...

Google is sharing user data tied to search keywords with law enforcement

Posted on 08/10/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

Google is still drawing criticism for the data it hands over to police. Detroit News reporter Robert Snell has reviewed court documents (via CNET) showing that Google handed over IP addresses for users who searched for a specific address shortly befo...

Amazon’s data request portal for police is visible on the web

Posted on 27/09/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

You might not have to wonder just what data police can request from Amazon — some of those details just became public. TechCrunch has discovered that parts of Amazon’s law enforcement request portal are visible to anyone on the web without requiring...

The LAPD has used facial recognition software 30,000 times since 2009

Posted on 21/09/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

For years, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) hasn't given a clear answer on whether it uses facial recognition in its policing work. That changed this week. On Monday, the agency told The Los Angeles Times it has used the technology nearly 30,...

Three men have been charged with leaking movies for nearly a decade

Posted on 27/08/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

In an attempt to take down the elite global piracy ring Sparks Group, US officials have charged three men with copyright infringement. Two of those men have been arrested, and law agencies in 18 other countries helped shut down servers used by the pi...

New York City says it will reassess police use of facial recognition

Posted on 17/08/2020 by Engadget RSS Feed

According to Mayor Bill de Blaiso, New York City will place additional restrictions on police use of facial recognition. The pledge comes after the NYPD employed the technology to identify a prominent Black Lives Matter activist. "We need to be ver...

Secret Service bought location data pulled from common apps