Amazon unveiled a new tracking system at a time when Americans are debating the value of persistent surveillance.

A Super Bowl ad for Ring security cameras boasting how the company can scan neighborhoods for missing dogs has prompted some customers to remove or even destroy their cameras.

Online, videos of people removing or destroying their Ring cameras have gone viral. One video posted by Seattle-based artist Maggie Butler shows her pulling off her porch-facing camera and flipping it the middle finger.

Butler explained that she originally bought the camera to protect against package thefts, but decided the pet-tracking system raised too many concerns about government access to data.

“They aren’t just tracking lost dogs, they’re tracking you and your neighbors,” Butler said in the video that has more than 3.2 million views.

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    31·
    4 hours ago

    My cameras have local network access only. Most people who are tech savvy enough to set up their own storage are also able to block Internet access for security cameras.

    But another big concern for externally mounted cameras with microsd cards is the confiscation of those cards. They are are very easy to remove, often without tools and I don’t believe for a minute that the fact that a warrant is required would make police actually get one before taking the card.

      • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        5·
        2 hours ago

        TP-Link (which are cheap but so unreliable I had to add smart switches to reset them when they stop working), Foscam and Dahua. Dahua is by far the best. All of them record to a local server running Home Assistant and Frigate.

          • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
            2·
            31 minutes ago

            Frigate is a marvel. Setting it up and tweaking it does take time but once done it requires almost no maintenance (at least in my experience) and is close to flawless. It’s only had 1 false alert in the last year and that was caused by a spiderweb on the camera. I wish all my applications were as trouble free.