Amazon’s Ring Ends Flock Partnership After Privacy Firestorm

During the Super Bowl, Amazon's Ring advertised a feature called Search Party in collaboration with Flock Safety, which was billed as an AI-accelerated way to make it easy for Ring customers to "help families find lost dogs" and help users "be a hero in your neighborhood". The backlash was swift and widespread, citing privacy concerns due to both the underlying surveillance technology in use and Flock's reputation for working with law enforcement agencies. Subsequently, Ring has announced that it will be canceling its integration with Flock Safety and continue with its current partners, and that since the integration never launched, "no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety".


That said, Ring still claims itself to be a key tool for neighborhood safety. In the same blog post announcing the cancelled partnership, Ring cites the Providence Police Department's use of Ring footage that "captured critical moments from" the shooting that occurred near Brown University in December and and "identified a new key witness, helping lead police to identify the suspect's vehicle and solve the case". Fortunately, this footage was provided voluntarily by 7 Ring customers after the Providence PD put out a Community Request, so this example does at least require user consent to utilize surveillance capabilities, unlike a similar incident in mid-2022. Regardless, these concerns have sparked a wider conversation around the capabilities of a surveillance state, and how Ring customers may intentionally or inadvertently create one with high enough adoption of the video doorbell technology.

None of that is to say that there aren't legitimate uses for these video doorbells or that they don't serve as a deterrent against blatant criminal activity. But a number of privacy concerns are going to be present when users are buying surveillance technology that can leak footage when hacked or shaken with sufficient force by government or law enforcement agencies. In order to succeed, Ring has to walk a delicate line between respecting the privacy of its users and serving as an extra tool for law enforcement, and realistically that will always be a polarizing conversation. Stepping away from the Flock partnership does seem to be a step in the right direction for privacy-minded critics, but the general concerns around widespread surveillance technology remain as pertinent as always.