“You have the A.I. angst, you have the Nancy Guthrie thing happening,” Mr. Siminoff said, offering his explanation as to why the Super Bowl ad created such an outcry. “All this came together and it created a perfect storm and it just hit and exploded.”
I'm sure he knows those two things are in the zeitgeist now, but they're not what people are worried about. They're worried about a vast network of cameras and AI tech that can find anything, anywhere, with no oversight.
“That’s the balance. It’s not just like unfettered mass surveillance,” he said. “That’s not what we have with Ring. You get to choose what you want to do with your individual home.”
It's not "like unfettered mass surveillance" today, but it is mass surveillance that's under the control of a company whose goals today might not be what they are tomorrow. And they do have to comply with government demands, so the network's very existence is the problem, not what the company says they'll do with it. What happens when ICE is looking for people they don't like in your neighborhood, and the CEO of Ring is politically aligned with that? (Ring is owned by Amazon.)
My cameras are mine, and so are the recordings they produce. If a neighbor loses their dog, I'll be happy to help, but I'm not giving anyone the footage of everything that happens on my street.
Ring’s Founder Knows You Hated That Super Bowl Ad
Since the commercial aired, Jamie Siminoff has been trying to quell an outcry over privacy concerns with his doorbell cameras.