Ring’s new Search Party feature has once again drawn backlash from the company. The 30-second ad, which aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl, showed Ringo cameras “watching” neighborhoods to find a lost dog. In the current political climate, a prime-time ad celebrating neighborhood watch has struck a chord.
People have expressed concern on social media that Ring’s AI-powered technology, which it uses to identify dogs, could soon be used to find people. Combined with the recent launch of Ringo’s new facial recognition capability, it seems like a short leap to turn pet-finding into a government surveillance tool.
Privacy expert Chris Gilliard told 404 Media that the ad was “Ringo’s clumsy attempt to put a plush face on a rather dystopian reality: large-scale network surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement and other equally invasive surveillance companies.”
“It’s definitely not about dogs – it’s about mass surveillance”
— A dream. Ed Markey
Concerns center on Amazon-owned Ring’s partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that has contracts with law enforcement agencies to use its automatic license plate readers, video surveillance systems and other technology.
The partnership links Ring’s extensive residential camera network to an organization that allegedly gave ICE access to data from its network own nationwide camera network.
“This is definitely not about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote on X. A vocal critic of Ringo’s ties to law enforcement, Markey urged more transparency about Ringo’s ties to law enforcement, along with stronger consumer privacy protections.
Comments on the YouTube video for the ad ranged from “This is a huge problem masquerading as a solution” to “Clever way to fire people up in mass viewing.” Video: Ring
Ring spokeswoman Emma Daniels said The Verge that Search Party is designed to match images of dogs and is “not capable of processing human biometrics”. In addition, they claim that the Familiar Faces facial recognition feature is separate from Search Party. It works at the individual account level, she said, and there’s no collective sharing like there is with Search Party.
While Familiar Faces is logged in for each user, Search Party is enabled by default on any outdoor camera registered to Ring’s subscription plan. It works by using artificial intelligence to scan cloud footage for a missing dog once the owner uploads the image to the Ring’s Neighbors app. If a match is found, Ring notifies the camera owner, who can then choose to share the video or notify the owner via the app.
“These are not mass surveillance tools.
—Emma Daniels, Ringu
“These are not mass surveillance tools,” Daniels said. “We’re building the right barriers and being super transparent about them.”
While that may be the case today, I asked if the ring cameras could one day be used to specifically search for people. “The way these features are built, they’re not capable of that today,” she said. “We don’t comment on feature roadmaps, but I have no knowledge or indication that we are creating such features at this time.”
Ring users can currently share footage from their cameras with local law enforcement during an active investigation through a feature called Community Requests. Unlike Ring police’s previous partnerships, Community Request goes through third-party companies – Taser Axon and soon Flock. “The reason we did this is because these third-party evidence management systems offer a much more secure chain of custody,” says Daniels. If the user declines the request, no one will be notified.
The company says neither the government nor law enforcement agencies have access to its network and that footage is only shared by users or in response to a legal request. Daniels reiterated what the company had previously said The Vergethat she has no partnership with ICE or any other federal agency, and said you can see every agency request on her Neighbors app profile.
In addition, the Flock integration is not currently underway, although Daniels had no update on the company’s plans for the partnership after the reaction. She referred me to an earlier answer. “As we explore the integration, we will ensure that this feature is only built for use by local public safety agencies – which is what the program is designed for.”
History has shown that tools capable of extensive surveillance are rarely limited to their original purpose
The problem is, there’s nothing stopping local agencies from sharing footage with the federal ones. And while the Super Bowl ad played heartwarming images of a girl reunited with her puppy, the leap to this technology that can track people around you is still very small. Combined with government overreach, it’s not hard to imagine a powerful AI-powered camera network moving from finding lost dogs to hunting people.
And Ring has a history of partnering with the police. While it has given some of that back in recent years, since the return of founder Jamie Siminoff, the company has refocused on using its products to prevent crime.
Siminoff said he came back because of the possibilities AI brings. He believes that with this technology, neighborhood cameras could be used for virtually “zero crime” within a year. With these stated goals and the new possibilities that AI can bring, why wouldn’t Ring plan to add some form of Search Party for People to its cameras?
Eliminating crime is an admirable goal, but history has shown that tools capable of large-scale surveillance are rarely limited to their original purpose. Ring has a responsibility here to protect its users, which it says it does. But at the end of the day, it’s about how much you can trust the company—and the company it keeps—that you’ll never cross. If Ring masks its ambitions behind our instinct to protect our furry friends, that trust will be hard to find.