Cleveland city council’s safety committee has approved a proposal to allow Cleveland police to seek access to home security cameras. If approved, police could request footage from the cameras installed in private residences – such as Ring doorbell cameras – by any security company in Cleveland. Deputy Chief Harold Pretel told council the rules for accessing the footage are based on agreements between security companies and their customers.
“They may ask you your desired protocol on releasing your footage,” Pretel said. “If the police reach out in an area, do you want to be contacted every time? And you go, ‘Well, yeah, they are looking for information on this robbery last night, sure give it to them.’ Or do you want to just give like a blanket yes, ‘If I have it on my system, you’re free to give it to the police.’”
The city has no rules about how long Cleveland police can store the footage, what they can use it for after they have it or the length of the footage they can request from the security company.
After Amazon-owned Ring came under fire for its Neighbours by Ring program, the company changed its rules so police departments could only request video from camera owners through a public post on the Neighbours app. Ring also tightened rules about disclosure – the post had to include an investigating officer’s contact information and a case number – and put limits on how much time the request could cover. Cleveland passed an ordinance last year to join the Neighbours by Ring program but, according to the company’s website, never joined.
The proposal faced little pushback from members of council. Ward 17 Councilman Charles Slife said it would be easier than trying to fill the department’s staffing shortages. “This is a way for us to bolster our public safety presence in a way that is really more cost effective and an easier lift than those 200 vacant positions we talked about.” In the recently passed 2022 budget, Cleveland Division of Police was given money for 1,640 uniformed officers. That would require hiring more than 200 new officers.
