is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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Ring’s new Search Party feature has once again drawn backlash for the company. A 30-second ad that aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl showed Ring cameras “surveilling” neighborhoods to locate a lost dog. In the current political climate, a prime-time ad celebrating neighborhood surveillance struck a nerve.
People voiced concerns across social media that the AI-powered technology Ring uses to identify dogs could soon be used to search for humans. Combined with Ring’s recent rollout of its new facial recognition capability, it feels like a short leap for a pet-finding feature to be turned into a tool for state surveillance.
Privacy expert Chris Gilliard told 404 Media that the ad was “a clumsy attempt by Ring to put a cuddly face on a rather dystopian reality: widespread networked surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement and other equally invasive surveillance companies.”
“This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance” — Sen. Ed Markey
The fears center on the Amazon-owned Ring’s partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that has contracts with law enforcement to use its automated license plate readers, video surveillance systems, and other technologies.
The partnership connects Ring’s massive residential camera network with an organization that has reportedly allowed ICE to access data from its own nationwide camera network.
“This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) posted on X. A vocal critic of Ring’s ties to law enforcement, Markey has pressed for greater transparency into Ring’s connections with law enforcement, along with stronger privacy protections for consumers.
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