Video doorbell maker Ring is now working with more than 2,000 police and fire departments across the United States, reports the Verge, citing a paid report from the Financial Times. [In 2020, 1,189 police and fire departments joined Ring's Neighbors Public Safety Service, allowing residents in their jurisdictions to request Ring's video feed. The program also allows departments to broadcast public safety advisories through Ring's Neighbors smartphone app.

According to the Verge, this is a fairly remarkable increase: only 703 public safety departments signed up for Neighbors in 2019, compared to only 40 in 2018.

The Neighbors app is separate from the regular Ring smartphone app, and you do not need to be a Ring owner to use the Neighbors app. Amazon acquired Ring in 2018.

The Google Play page for the Neighbors app seems to double down on suburban concerns. One screenshot shows a suspicious man in a backyard with the words "This guy was just casing my house, watch out!" Another image encourages users to "work with your neighbors and the police to reduce crime."

Left-leaning privacy groups have been bashing Ring for years for working closely with the police. One group is pushing Tom's Guide and other tech publications to rescind their endorsement of Ring's video doorbell.

We would not do that; Ring's video doorbell works admirably as a video doorbell. Furthermore, the wave of highly publicized Ring "hacks" in 2019 occurred because many Ring customers did not follow instructions and instead reused their old passwords.

The doorbell itself does not automatically send the video to Mann; it is up to the Ring doorbell owner to take the next step of installing the Neighbors app or allowing local police to view archived Ring video clips.

If you own a Ring video doorbell or use the Neighbors app, you can check to see if your local police, sheriff, or fire department participates in the Neighbors Public Safety Service.

All you need to do is visit Ring's Active Agency Map athttps://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035402811-Active-Law-Enforcement-Map.

to see a Google map overlaid with all local public safety departments enrolled in Ring's program. The map also shows how many video requests were made by that department to Ring doorbell owners in the last three months of 2020. Click here for a full screen version of the map.

For example, if you look at the Los Angeles Basin on the map, you will see that the Los Angeles Police Department does not have a contract with Ring, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department does.

The police departments of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Inglewood, Hawthorne, El Segundo, Gardena, Torrance, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach also contract with Ring. In Manhattan Beach, however, only the fire department participates in the program.

In Tom's Guide's hometown of New York City, neither the NYPD nor the NYC Fire Department participate in the Neighbors program. However, there is a blue badge in the middle of Brooklyn, indicating that the "Seagate Police Department" participates in the ring feed.

Confused that perhaps a new municipality had been established in New York overnight, Tom's Guide did a little Googling. Seagate P.D., it turns out, is a 25-member civilian police force that patrols a gated community near Coney Island.

Last year, an NYPD officer sued Seagate P.D., saying that Seagate officers tried to arrest him outside the gated community.