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Now Ring, one of the largest home security camera providers in the United States, is rolling out a new encryption technology that it hopes will give customers more confidence about the privacy of their cameras and footage.<\/p>\n
It is the latest move by a security camera company to address consumers\u2019 privacy and surveillance fears. Earlier this month, law enforcement technology firm Flock introduced<\/a> new police auditing and accountability controls.<\/p>\n Ring\u2019s update<\/a> effectively means customers don\u2019t have to worry about any third parties, including law enforcement and Amazon itself, viewing their home security footage without their consent, according to the Amazon-owned company. That was already Ring\u2019s policy, but the new form of encryption reinforces that on a technical level.<\/p>\n The technology is called TAKE \u2014 an acronym for \u201cthrow away the key.\u201d When stored in the cloud, a user\u2019s videos will be kept in what Ring says is effectively a secure digital vault to which only the user has the key. The company says it will only get the virtual key to run features like video search for a limited time with a customer\u2019s approval and then will \u201cthrow away the key,\u201d so Ring doesn\u2019t have ongoing access to the videos.<\/p>\n Ring will roll out the new encryption as the default security setting on all of its cameras starting in September.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are always going to have questions about, like, how do you store it? How do you protect it?\u201d Ring founder Jamie Siminoff told CNN. \u201cAs a company we\u2019ve done, I believe, a really good job with that, but this is the physical way of now giving them confidence \u2026 this is the show, not just tell.\u201d<\/p>\n Ring has long faced criticism over its\u202frelationship with law enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company faced intense scrutiny<\/a> earlier this year after a Super Bowl ad about a lost dog feature prompted surveillance fears<\/a>. Weeks later, Ring canceled a controversial partnership<\/a> with Flock.<\/p>\n Ring says TAKE provides a similar level of protection as end-to-end encryption, where sensitive data is effectively scrambled when traveling between one trusted endpoint (like a camera) and another (like a customer\u2019s phone) and no outsider can access it. But the company says the new technology is more effective for the multi-device, multi-user configurations used by many Ring customers.<\/p>\n Ring users can still voluntarily share footage with law enforcement if police request it through the company\u2019s Neighbors app.<\/p>\n