Ring Terminates Partnership with Police Surveillance Firm Following Backlash Over Super Bowl Ad
Ring, the smart doorbell manufacturer owned by Amazon, has ended its collaboration with Flock Safety, a technology firm specializing in police surveillance.
This decision comes after a public outcry triggered by a 30-second Ring commercial aired during the Super Bowl. The ad featured a lost dog located via a camera network, raising concerns about a dystopian surveillance state.
However, this specific capability, known as Search Party, was not connected to Flock. Furthermore, Ring’s statement does not mention the advertisement as the factor behind the “joint decision” to cancel the deal.
Last year, Ring and Flock announced plans to collaborate, allowing Ring camera users to voluntarily share their video recordings when law enforcement made requests via Ring’s Community Requests feature.
“After conducting a thorough review, we concluded that the planned integration with Flock Safety would demand considerably more time and resources than we originally expected,” according to Ring’s statement.
“Since the integration never went live, no videos from Ring customers were ever transmitted to Flock Safety.”
Flock confirmed that it never received any video from Ring users and emphasized that ending the proposed integration was a mutual choice enabling both firms to “best serve their respective customers.” In its own statement, Flock noted that it “remains committed to providing law enforcement agencies with tools that can be fully adapted to local regulations and policies.”
As one of the largest operators of automated license plate reading systems in the country, Flock has cameras installed throughout the United States, capturing billions of license plate images monthly. The company has faced criticism during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. However, Flock asserts it does not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or contract with any Homeland Security sub-agencies for direct camera access. The company did collaborate with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations last year.
Nevertheless, Flock states that it does not own the data its cameras capture; its customers do. Consequently, if a police department opts to share data with a federal agency such as ICE, “Flock has no ability to override that decision,” as noted on the company’s website.
Apart from the Flock partnership, Amazon has encountered scrutiny regarding its Ring doorbell cameras.
In the Super Bowl advertisement, Ring’s Search Party feature is used to locate a missing pet. The company claims this feature can “reunite lost dogs with their families and track wildfires threatening your community.” The video shows the dog being monitored by neighborhood cameras utilizing artificial intelligence.
Viewers flocked to social media to condemn the ad as ominous, with many questioning whether the technology would be used to track people and stating their intention to disable the feature.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit focused on digital civil liberties, stated this week that Americans should feel uneasy about the potential erosion of privacy.
“Amazon Ring already incorporates biometric identification, such as facial recognition, into its products through features like ‘Familiar Faces.’ This relies on scanning faces within the camera’s view and matching them against a pre-saved, pre-approved list,” the Foundation wrote on Tuesday. “It is easy to imagine a future where Ring combines these two capabilities: facial recognition and neighborhood searches.”
Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts also called on Amazon to stop using its “Familiar Faces” technology.
In a letter sent to Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy, Markey stated that the negative reaction to the Super Bowl commercial “confirmed public opposition to Ring’s constant monitoring and invasive image recognition algorithms.”