Ring’s new Search Party feature has once again drawn criticism from the company. The 30-second ad aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl showed Ring cameras “surveilling” a neighborhood to locate a lost dog. In the current political climate, a prime-time ad celebrating neighborhood watch caused consternation.
People expressed concern on social media that the AI-powered technology used by Ring to identify dogs could soon be used to search for humans. With Ring’s recent rollout of its new facial recognition capability, it seems like a small leap to transform a pet-finding feature 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 rosy face on a distorted reality: mass network surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement and other equally aggressive surveillance companies.”
“This is definitely not about dogs – this is about mass surveillance.”
– Sen. Ed Markey
The fears center on 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 links Ring’s vast residential camera network to an organization that reportedly allowed ICE to access its data own Nationwide Camera Network.
“This is definitely not about dogs – this is about mass surveillance,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) posted on Twitter.
Comments on the YouTube video of the ad ranged from “This is a big problem disguised as a solution,” to “Smart way to gaslight people into mass surveillance.” Video: Ring
Ring spokesperson Emma Daniels told The Verge That search party is designed to match images of dogs and is “not capable of processing human biometrics.” Additionally, he says the familiar facial recognition feature is separate from the search party. It operates at the individual account level, he said, and there is no communal sharing as there is with Search Party.
While Familiar Faces is opt-in for every user, Search Party is enabled by default on any outdoor camera enrolled in Ring’s subscription plan. It works by using AI to scan footage in the cloud for a missing dog when the owner uploads a photo to Ring’s Neighbors app. If a match is found, Ring alerts the camera owner, who can then choose to share the video or notify the owner through the app.
“These are not tools for mass surveillance.”
-Emma Daniels, Ring
“These are not mass surveillance tools,” Daniels said. “We build the right guardrails, and we’re extremely transparent about them.”
Although that may be the case today, I asked if Ring cameras might someday be used specifically to search for people. “The way these facilities are built, they’re not capable of doing that today,” he said. “We don’t comment on feature road maps, but I have no knowledge or indication that we are building such features at this time.”
Ring users can currently share footage from their cameras with local law enforcement during active investigations through a feature called Community Requests. Unlike previous Ring Police partnerships, community requests go through third-party companies — Taser company Axon and, soon, Flock — among others. “We did this because these third-party evidence management systems provide a more secure chain of custody,” says Daniels. If a user declines a request, no one will be notified.
The company says that neither the government nor law enforcement can access its network, and footage is only shared by users or in response to a legal request. Daniels reiterated what the company had said earlier The VergeThat it has no partnership with ICE or any other federal agency, and that you can see every request made by agencies on its Neighbors app profile.
Additionally, the Flock integration is not currently live, though Daniels did not have any updates on the company’s plans for the partnership following the response. He told me about the earlier reaction. “As we explore integration, we will ensure that this feature is built for use only by local public safety agencies – which is what the program is designed for.”
History has shown that tools capable of mass surveillance are rarely limited to their original purpose.
The problem is that there’s nothing to stop local agencies from sharing footage with federal agencies. And while the Super Bowl ad featured heartwarming images of a girl reuniting with her puppy, the leap from this technology that can track people in your neighborhood is still very small. With government overreach, it’s not hard to imagine how a powerful network of AI-enabled cameras does everything from finding lost dogs to hunting down people.
And Ring has a history of partnering with police. Although some of this has been scaled back in recent years, since the return of founder Jamie Siminoff, the company has refocused its attention on using its products to prevent crime.
Siminoff said he came back because of the possibilities brought by AI. With this technology, he believes neighborhood cameras can be used to virtually “zero crime” within a year. Given these stated goals and the new capabilities that AI could bring, why wouldn’t Ring be planning on adding some kind of search party for people to its cameras?
Eradicating crime is an admirable goal, but history has shown that tools capable of mass surveillance are rarely limited to their original purpose. Ring has a responsibility to protect its users, which it says it is doing. But ultimately, it depends on how much you can trust a company – and the company it trusts – to never step up. If Ring is hiding its ambitions behind our instincts to protect our furry friends, it will be difficult to earn that trust.
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