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In a recent development, Ring, Amazon’s doorbell product, has decided to end its association with a surveillance company following widespread privacy concerns triggered by a Super Bowl advertisement. The ad showcased Ring’s Search Party feature, an AI-driven tool designed to assist users by providing camera feeds based on specific visual prompts. While the commercial illustrated a benign scenario involving the hunt for a lost dog, it quickly ignited worries among viewers about the potential misuse of this technology for monitoring individuals.
It is important to note that Flock Safety, the surveillance company involved, has no ties to the Search Party feature. Interestingly, Ring’s announcement on Thursday regarding the termination of their collaboration with Flock Safety did not mention the recent advertisement controversy.
The decision to part ways was described as mutual, with Ring citing both financial and time constraints as the primary reasons. The company reassured its users that their doorbell video feeds had never been shared with Flock Safety.
Ring emphasized its core mission in the wake of these developments, reiterating their commitment to enhancing neighborhood safety. “Our mission has always been to make neighborhoods safer,” the company stated, highlighting the significant responsibility they bear towards their customers and the communities they serve. They also stressed the importance of maintaining the trust placed in their products and features.
“At Ring, our mission has always been to make neighborhoods safer,” the company wrote. “That mission comes with significant responsibility — to our customers, to the communities we serve, and to the trust you place in our products and features.”
Flock Safety offers several features on their website, including license plate readers, audio detectors and shared neighborhood camera surveillance programs. The firm partners with several companies, including Amazon Web Services and private security body camera company, Halos.
Ring and Flock Safety announced their intention to collaborate on Ring’s Community Requests feature last year. The new project would have provided customers with the option to share doorbell footage in response to requests from law enforcement.
Police have increasingly relied on doorbell footage to solve crimes, and the company noted that Ring videos provided by neighbors were instrumental in identifying a suspect in the shooting at Brown University last fall.
Most recently, the FBI released video footage taken from a Nest doorbell camera as part of the agency’s efforts to track down the culprit behind the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
However, some critics have expressed concerns that this function could be used for federal surveillance to identify people during immigration enforcement operations.
Ring stressed that Community Request is “voluntary” and that customers are not forced to share their doorbell footage with others, including with law enforcement. While the company has ended its partnership with Flock Safety, it said that this tool is still “a core feature” of its product.
“The feature empowers Ring camera owners to choose to share specific videos with local police in response to requests for help with active investigations – or ignore the request altogether,” the company wrote. “Participation is always voluntary. You have complete control over whether to respond to a Community Request and what you share. Every Community Request is publicly posted and searchable for complete transparency and auditability.”
Ring also expressed its commitment to protecting customers’ rights to privacy.
“We’ll continue to carefully evaluate future partnerships to ensure they align with our standards for customer trust, safety, and privacy,” the company wrote.