Ding-dong, your doorbell is looking a bit creepy. Ring video doorbells, Nest Hello and other connected security cameras are the fastest-growing home improvement gadgets since garage-door openers. These cameras, often built into buzzers, alert your phone when someone is at your door and save footage online. Mine has helped me get deliveries and catch porch pirates stealing packages. Earlier this month, one caught a man licking a family's doorbell for three hours.

Civil liberties advocates are calling on Amazon to cease providing facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies. "We demand that Amazon stop powering a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country", a coalition let by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote in a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. At issue is a tool known as "Rekognition" that allows users to compare anonymous faces against other images to try and establish identity. An explanatory post on Amazon's website notes that it offers "security and surveillance applications" that include "crime prevention" by identifying "persons of interest". According to emails obtained by the ACLU, multiple law enforcement agencies have harnessed the tool in their investigative work.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Thursday that his agency will begin deploying an unmanned aerial device to aid deputies responding to arson scenes, suspected bombs and hostage situations, but he promised the device would not be used to surveil residents. The use or attempted use of drones by law enforcement elsewhere has come under fire from privacy and civil liberty advocates, and McDonnell and other agency officials avoided using the word "drone" during a 20-minute news conference unveiling the department's latest technological addition. Instead, the sheriff praised the $10,000 device as a useful tool that can give deputies a life-saving advantage in potentially deadly situations. "The dangers of law enforcement can never be eliminated," he said. "However, this technology can assist us in reducing the impact of risks on personnel."