Earlier that year, El Monte had entered into an official partnership with Ring, which gives officers access to an online platform where they can ask citizens for footage from their doorbell cameras that may be connected to a crime investigation. In exchange, police departments promote the use of Ring’s cameras and its associated crime watch app, Neighbors. A few weeks after Williams sent out a reminder about the rewards program, a Ring employee emailed him with a congratulatory note: “Since EMPD first onboarded on 5/1, you have all increased your Neighbors app users El Monte residents by 1,058 users!Great job!”While El Monte’s rewards program is fairly unique, the police department’s relationship with Ring isn’t. According to one memo uncovered by Gizmodo earlier this week, over 225 other police departments have entered into contractual partnerships with the surveillance company, which was acquired by Amazon last year for over $800 million. Some departments have given out free or discounted Ring devices to the community, and city governments are also subsidizing Ring products using taxpayer money, according to reporting from Motherboard. Ring says it didn’t pay for the doorbells given out in El Monte, and the police department did not return a request for comment. Ring’s partnerships with law enforcement have come under growing scrutiny in recent months, as media reports have raised questions about their lack of transparency and potential for privacy abuses. Ring argues that its products can drastically reduce crime in communities, but critics have questioned the grounds for those claims. Others accuse the Neighbors app, and similar apps like Citizen, of creating an ersatz surveillance state and stoking fears at a time when crime rates are at historic lows. The company’s motion activated doorbells may capture innocent activities of people who live nearby, like someone walking down a public street. Earlier this week, the digital rights group Fight for the Future launched a new campaign asking citizens to demand their local police departments end their relationship with the company.

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Motion activated floodlights near shadowed areas create extra security as well.

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We will update as events unfold.

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