Amazon is hoarding your Ring camera data

A recent data request by the BBC revealed that Amazon is keeping tabs on motion detection, frequency of doorbell “dings,” and other actions relating to your Ring camera.

Amazon is obliged to share your data with you whenever you submit a data subject request. The BBC decided to test this out back in January, and the tech giant was forced to send over results that covered a four-month period.

Nestled within that huge pile of data from Amazon was a whopping 1,939 Ring camera events from one Ring Video Doorbell 2.

Related: Read our Ring Indoor Camera review

This saved camera data covers everything from the mundane (a log of when you use the Ring app) to the startlingly detailed (the co-ordinates of your device to 13 decimal points). Other events that are stored by Amazon include a log of motion sensor activity, details of remote connection habits, and a record of doorbell ‘dings’.

Ring is a subsidiary of Amazon – and given how much big tech companies love hoarding data it’s no surprise that the commerce giant is keeping track of its customers. If you wade through all the small print in Ring privacy agreements, it states under Information Sharing “We may share your personal information with (1) our affiliates and subsidiaries.”

It gets a little muddy in how the data is handled though, as the two companies have distinct data controllers. We’ve reached out to Ring and asked them to clarify how data sharing works and to confirm why Amazon is hoarding this Ring-sourced data.

Related: Ring doorbells and your data

Ring has been in constant hot water since December last year, when a series of camera hacks put them in the headlines – the most famous incident from that period involved a man hacking into a Ring camera to communicate with a child.

Since then, it’s also been accused of sneakily sharing data with Facebook. After that fiasco, Ring gave customers the choice to opt out of sharing certain – but not all – data with third parties, but you’ll have to email the company directly to do this.

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