Victorian Visual Culture

MIT Technology Review recently published an article, “How Amazon Ring uses domestic violence to market doorbell cameras,” that eerily reflects the surveillance technology established in the 19th century, for what is a Ring camera but not an individual’s own personal watch tower in the panopticon?

Amazon Ring partnered with several police departments in the United States to help combat domestic violence; these departments gave free Ring cameras to survivors of domestic violence so they would be able to have video evidence of their abuser in the act of abusing, or in the case of one woman mentioned in the article, her abuser breaking into her house. At first glance, this appears like a perfect solution to a crime that notoriously has a lack of “hard evidence,” but upon further investigation, it becomes increasingly clear that the use of Ring cameras only serves to perpetuate the victimization of survivors. For one, there is a specific app associated with the camera that the owner and certain neighbors can access in order to alert the survivor of anything; however, there is a special portal in the app that allows for police to ask for private footage. The pervading issue of the Ring cameras is exactly that: law enforcement having intimate access to video surveillance of the survivors, their homes, as well as passerby who are then susceptible to racial profiling. The use of Ring cameras for this purpose is an evolution of the panopticon, if you will, in which the police once again have ownership over the proverbial eye and are the masters of surveillance which positions almost everyone as potential criminals; just as Victorian police and the emergence of crime photography allowed for the definition of ‘criminal’ to expand, Ring does the same, this time under the guise of protecting domestic violence survivors.

“But some domestic violence experts are concerned that these initiatives inject a combination of potentially dangerous factors into the lives of those they are supposed to protect: law enforcement that doesn’t always listen to survivors; a technology company with a patchy record on privacy and transparency; and programs launched without much department oversight—or input from experts on domestic violence.”  (Eileen Guo)

The survivors of domestic violence in the program with free Ring cameras had to sign an agreement which decreed that their involvement in the program is contingent upon them providing footage to the police; if they refuse, they are out of the program. In this regard, domestic violence survivors are not protected from future attacks, but placed under a synonymous position of criminality.

Surveillance in the Victorian consciousness — an already hyper visual culture– was a natural solution to anxieties surrounding crime; the utilization of Ring cameras is no different, except now every individual has the power to surveil, and thus, police and discipline.

Unfortunately, what happened in the Victorian era did not stay in the Victorian era, and here we are, employing the surveillance techniques in a treacherously evolved way.

Guo, Eileen. “How Amazon Ring Uses Domestic Violence to Market Doorbell Cameras.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 20 Sept. 2021, https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/20/1035945/amazon-ring-domestic-violence/