Ring and surveillance company Flock Safety have cancelled their partnership, which planned to make it easier for police to access footage from users’ personal cameras. This comes less than a week after Ring’s widely criticised Super Bowl ad drew further attention to the concerning privacy implications of its home security system.
“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” Ring wrote in a blog post. “As a result, we have made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration. The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.”
Though Ring states that resource issues are to blame for the partnership’s cancellation, its collaboration with Flock Safety has been the subject of significant criticism regarding privacy and surveillance concerns. Distrust toward the Amazon-owned surveillance camera company has escalated, with users reportedly disconnecting, destroying, or returning their Ring devices. Some have also specifically cited Flock Safety’s use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
News of the partnership’s cancellation closely follows Ring’s poorly received Super Bowl ad, which promoted its AI-powered Search Party feature. Advertised as a tool for finding lost pets, Search Party allows people to upload a photo of their dog so that Ring can search their neighbours’ camera footage for the animal using AI detection.
Concerned viewers quickly pointed out that this technology could very easily be used to track humans as well. Ring introduced facial recognition to its devices late last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stating that the feature could potentially violate people’s right to privacy.
