- Ring cuts ties with Flock Safety, linked to law enforcement
- Critics accuse Ring of implementing ‘mass surveillance’
- A new Search Party ad has also raised privacy concerns.
Facing growing criticism over its privacy and data-sharing policies, Amazon-owned Ring has severed ties with surveillance technology company Flock Safety, although it may not be enough to appease many of its critics.
“We determined that the planned integration of Flock Safety would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” says Ring (via The Verge). “Therefore, we have made a joint decision to cancel the planned integration.”
Ring also confirmed that the integration was never released, even though it was announced last October, so no data was sent between the two companies. Flock Safety is known to work with government and law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Ring and Flock Safety partnership was part of Ring’s Community Requests feature, where users can choose to share camera footage with local police to assist in active investigations. That program continues, and Ring notes that it helped identify a key witness in the December 2025 Brown University shooting.
“We remain focused on building tools that allow neighbors to help each other while maintaining strong privacy protections and transparency around how our features work,” Ring says. “We will continue to carefully evaluate future partnerships to ensure they align with our standards for customer trust, security and privacy.”
With added facial recognition
What this ad doesn’t show: Ring also implemented facial recognition for humans. I wrote to you months ago about this. Your answer? They will not ask for your consent. It’s definitely not about dogs, but mass surveillance. https://t.co/bncjffU3DZFebruary 9, 2026
A few days ago, Ring also released a new ad showcasing its Search Party feature, prompting more complaints from critics who described it as “dystopian,” although, like the Flock Safety integration, this is not new and was unveiled last year.
The idea of Search Party is that if a dog goes missing, local Ring cameras are used to help detect it. It’s enabled by default, so you have to opt out if you don’t like it, but Ring says Search Party has found more than one dog a day since its launch.
Finding lost dogs is a laudable goal, but there are concerns that the same setup could easily be used to track people. US Senator Ed Markey has described Search Party as a “mass surveillance” system, especially considering that Ring products can now be programmed to recognize familiar faces as well.
Ring says facial recognition data is kept private and secure, and can improve security by letting you know if it’s a family member or a stranger wandering around your property. It’s also a feature available on other security cameras, including Google Nest Cams. However, users are far from convinced that Ring can be trusted.
The issue is not the advertised capabilities, but how they might be reused in the future, with or without public knowledge—a debate about trust and privacy that will no doubt continue. It seems that many people have already tired of Ring’s approach and are returning their cameras.
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