At the June 22, 2022 City Commission meeting, at the request of Mayor Steven Meiner (then Commissioner Meiner), the Mayor and City Commission approved a referral (C4 R) to the Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee (“PSNQLC”) to discuss the status and potential enhancements to the City’s RING doorbell camera program.

The item was heard at the December 7, 2022 PSNQLC meeting and continued to a future meeting with the direction to further publicize the program throughout the City of Miami Beach. The item has not been heard again to date.

In 2018, the Miami Beach Police Department began building a relationship with Ring, Inc (“Ring”) which resulted in a Resolution and the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) later that year. Ring is a video surveillance company that offers video doorbells and security cameras that have the capacity to send owners an instant alert to any mobile device or computer when motion is detected at a residence or business. The City’s MOU incentivized residents to install and utilize Ring doorbell cameras to share critical crime and safety events and information with participating law enforcement agencies via the Ring Neighborhoods platform.

As previously presented, while the intent of the program is commendable, the Ring solution has continually been declining in usage by the Department as an investigative tool due to a combination of the following factors:

• Since the onset of this program, security surveillance has evolved, and residents have more options than the Ring platform. For example, residents have often opted to use the devices offered by their private alarm companies. Other hardware and software available on the market have gained in popularity, making Ring just one of many platforms used for security and investigative purposes.

• Detectives often have more success meeting with homeowners and obtaining consent to review and retrieve video footage directly, whether from a doorbell and/or camera source regardless of the brand or company they subscribe to, than retrieving the information from the Ring platform, where there are often delays and issues with receiving access. Ring customers can share videos with law enforcement easily by accessing their Ring account, either through the Ring app, or directly on www.ring.com.

• Ring has recently revisited its policies as they relate to law enforcement. While officers could easily circumvent any legal difficulties obtaining footage or information from Ring by gathering the necessary information directly from homeowners utilizing the software, Ring does not disclose user information in response to government demands (i.e., legally valid and binding requests for information from law enforcement agencies such as search warrants, subpoenas and court orders) unless they're required to comply, and it is properly served. Ring can object to legal requests it determines to be overbroad or inappropriate or which they deem not to provide sufficient information to locate responsive records. These requests must be submitted through the Amazon Law Enforcement Request Tracker ("ALERT").

• Ring has access to videos captured by a Ring device only if the user has a current Ring Protect subscription (including a free trial) that was in place at the time of the event. The subscription enables customers to set the retention period for their Ring device video recordings. Ring retains such videos in accordance with the retention period set by the customer.

It should be noted that, due to the way that police reports are written, the use of the program to carry out an investigation is mentioned anecdotally as part of the narrative portion of the report. The system used by the Department does not have a systematic mechanism which can be used to run a standard report to gauge how many cases have used surveillance material from a Ring camera under the program.

For all the outlined reasons, additional efforts to expand and publicize the program did not come to fruition. While the argument to include information on the MOU and the platform continue to warrant inclusion in the City’s website, the Department does not believe a larger marketing strategy should be used due to both the use of multiple platforms both by the Department and residents as well as the perception of endorsing one platform over another.