The Wiretap: Facial Recognition, Amazon Ring, And Surveillance Of The LA Protests

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The protests in LA are being captured by all manner of surveillance devices. But federal and local police have different restrictions on what they can do with the footage (Photo by)
'I have all of you on camera. I'm going to come to your house.' Those were the words coming from an LAPD officer in a helicopter over LA protestors, according to the LA Times. The implicit threat, according to some privacy advocates, was that the cops would use facial recognition software to identify and locate those protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
It's not quite so easy to do that, though. A source close to the agency, who was not authorized to talk on record, told Forbes that LAPD will be going through camera footage - whether shot from a helicopter, surveillance cams or bodycams - and try to identify people. However, the LAPD can only search for matches from police-owned arrest records, namely, mugshots. Its own rules don't allow it to search for matches across other sources, such as social media.
Federal agents, however, don't have the same restrictions. Any federal agent using Clearview or an alternative can take the same footage and run facial images to find matches across photos scraped from social sites. One of Clearview's best-known federal customers is ICE, which typically uses it in child exploitation cases. It's unclear how often the agency uses it for immigration enforcement. Neither ICE nor the LAPD had responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Law enforcement has another potential source for protest footage: video from Amazon Ring cameras or its competitors. Though Amazon has stopped cops requesting information directly over the Ring Neighbours social platform, federal and local cops can demand data recorded by those devices with a court order. The video could then be used to identify protestors.
While the source close to LAPD said they weren't aware of any specific uses of Ring around this week's events, they said it's certainly a capability that exists.
Meanwhile, concerned citizens have also been using Neighbors to share footage of ICE raids and agents in the L.A. area, either to warn about them or to celebrate the actions.
In footage from Monday, identified by a Forbes' reporter, a Ring user shared footage they claimed showed ICE targeting laborers at a local Home Depot. Another warned about ICE agents at a mall and a Costco.
Amazon Ring didn't comment on record, though a spokesperson pointed Forbes to guidelines that prohibit users posting on 'topics that cause inevitable frictions like politics and election information,' as well as 'highly debated social issues.' Its moderators might be busier than normal this week.
Got a tip on surveillance or cybercrime? Get me on Signal at +1 929-512-7964.
DOGE pre-Elon Musk's departure and break up with President Trump. (Photo by)
The Supreme Court has given a green light to the Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security Administration data. The decision came after the Trump administration had filed an emergency application to lift an injunction from a federal judge in Maryland.
In its decision, the Supreme Court said DOGE staff needed the access to do their job. While the White House cheered the decision as a victory for fighting fraud and waste in federal agencies, opponents said the ruling 'will enable President Trump and DOGE's affiliates to steal Americans' private and personal data.'
A cyber researcher found a way to identify phone numbers linked to any Google account. Google has since fixed the issue, which may have exposed users to SIM swapping scams.
The DOJ has launched an offensive on the dark web marketplace BidenCash, where users buy and sell stolen credit card and personal information. The agency has taken down 145 domains across both the standard web and the darknet associated with the bazaar. The service has so far generated over $17 million in revenue, according to Justice officials.
A man who controls much of the infrastructure that underpins Telegram also controls other companies with links to Russian intelligence agency FSB, according to an investigation by the Organized Crimes and Corruption Reporting Project's Russian partner, Important Stories. Telegram has not responded to the allegations.
The Guardian has launched a new way to tip its reporters securely with an app simply called 'Secure Messaging.' It sounds pretty neat: 'The technology behind Secure Messaging conceals the fact that messaging is taking place at all by making the communication indistinguishable from other data sent to and from the app by our millions of regular users. By using the Guardian app, other users are effectively providing 'cover' and helping us to protect sources.'
President Trump has been unsurprisingly careless with his personal iPhone, taking calls from numbers he doesn't recognize. That's despite repeatedly being warned about the heightened risks of foreign surveillance and interception that come with using a device with a 'broadly circulated number,' according to a report in The Atlantic.

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