The popular doorbell camera company, Ring, is taking away some privileges for public safety agencies using its app. Ring announced on Wednesday that it is “sunsetting” the Request for Assistance (RFA) tool.
This tool allows public safety agencies like police and fire departments to request doorbell camera video using the app.
The statement released by Eric Kuhn, Head of Neighbors at Ring, said in part:
"This week, we are also sunsetting the Request for Assistance (RFA) tool. Public safety agencies like fire and police departments can still use the Neighbors app to share helpful safety tips, updates, and community events. They will no longer be able to use the RFA tool to request and receive video in the app. Public safety agency posts are still public, and will be available for users to view on the Neighbors app feed and on the agency's profile."
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NBC Connecticut spoke with Sergeant Mark Cleverdon with South Windsor Police about this change.
Cleverdon said doorbell camera has been really useful in their investigations.
"Those camera systems are extremely beneficial," Sgt. Cleverdon said. “It gives us an extra added layer of investigative abilities when we’re looking into certain areas and certain crimes that are happening.”
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In South Windsor, Cleverdon said, it has helped with crimes as simple as petty theft to crimes as serious as homicide. The video footage helps move evidence from hearsay to criminal activity being caught in the act.
“We had a domestic violence homicide that occurred a few years ago and we were able to use Ring camera surveillance footage to find that suspect and kind of track his travels to where the crime was committed,” Cleverdon explained.
According to NBC News, as of 2020, the Neighbors app boasted more than 10 million users. The app is basically a virtual neighborhood watch group for communities to communicate about emergencies, disasters, suspicious activity, events, and other issues.
Cleverdon said the South Windsor Police Department does use the Neighbors app to post public service announcements and other information the community needs to know, but it never used the RFA tool. He said they do it the old-fashioned way of knocking on the doors of people with cameras.
“If we’re conducting investigation in a certain area when we're doing a neighborhood canvasing for witnesses, we would on top of that look for houses that have cameras and go talk to those individuals and see if there is any information they’d be willing to share with us from the cameras that would help us in the investigation,” Cleverdon explained.
The Neighbors app is adding new features for communities to use.
