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With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet (404media.co) 71

Posted by msmash from the who-watches-the-watchdog dept.
Ring's Super Bowl ad on Sunday promoted "Search Party," a feature that lets a user post a photo of a missing dog in the Ring app and triggers outdoor Ring cameras across the neighborhood to use AI to scan for a match. 404 Media argues the cheerful premise obscures what the Amazon-owned company has become: a massive, consumer-deployed surveillance network.

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, who left in 2023 and returned last year, has since moved to re-establish police partnerships and push more AI into Ring cameras. The company has also partnered with Flock, a surveillance firm used by thousands of police departments, and launched a beta feature called "Familiar Faces" that identifies known people at your door. Chris Gilliard, author of the upcoming book Luxury Surveillance, called the ad "a clumsy attempt by Ring to put a cuddly face on a rather dystopian reality: widespread networked surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement."

Further reading: No One, Including Our Furry Friends, Will Be Safer in Ring's Surveillance Nightmare, EFF Says
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With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet More

With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet

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  • "Search Party Deported Another Neighbor!" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:08PM (#65983792)
    What a shitty place we're becoming.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      What a shitty place we're becoming.

      I can see the next ad:

      A creepy dude holds up a blurry smartphone photo that was obviously taken from a long distance and says, "Hey, Los Angeles. I can't find my 'girlfriend'. I haven't seen her in a few hours, and she isn't taking my calls. I don't know what name she is going by now, but if you see her, please call me at 555-555-5555. I'm really worried about her."

      Alternative version: He isn't creepy, but instead is wearing a vest with lots of pouches and is carrying a camera with a long lens. He hold

  • Dang it (Score:3)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:16PM (#65983806) Homepage Journal

    Authors wrote cyberpunk dystopia novels as a warning, not as a roadmap.

  • A woman down the street got caught cheating by one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:32PM (#65983828)
    Last year, a married couple down the street for me got divorced because their nosy neighbor across the street complained on nextdoor about some guy illegally parking, blocking a driveway...with ring camera photos. Well, the husband saw it, because it was his driveway being blocked (by about 6 inches), but the car belonged to her ex husband and he was out of town when it happened. So there's all sorts of shittiness going on in that instance and that couple was a piece of work...to put it nicely, but it illustrates something I've worried about for a long time.

    I don't give a shit about the cops knowing things about me. I don't commit crimes. I sincerely believe Amazon that they made these ringcams to reduce package theft, a huge expense for them.

    However, I FUCKING HATE that my lazy piece of shit neighbors have easy surveillance of EVERY visitor in my house...every moment my lights go on or off...they can not only see in every window in my house that faces theirs, but they can easily go back in time and see anything of interest, even when they're gone or asleep.

    I live in the city, so my front door is 50 feet from the door across the street...GREAT view for a ringcam. An elderly neighbor with one likes to tattle on people in our neighborhood. She warned my next door neighbor that her husband was having a pretty girl visit late at night every night when he was out of town....offered to show her the ring footage. That pretty girl?...their fucking babysitter. He had to work late at night for a deadline and they had 2yo twins at the time

    While shit like this isn't new, technology and now facial recognition is making it a lot easier for shitty morons like these neighbors to do things like this. I especially hate the facial recognition part. Before, you had to watch through footage. Now AI can give summaries of everywhere someone was. This WILL get leaked sooner or later. I hope you don't cheat...and equally importantly, I hope the data is accurate. What happens when some jealous husband knocks on your door demanding answers on why your wife was at your place...when she never was...but the ring cam thought your babysitter was someone else....or the coordinates or timestamp gets messed up. Or....the data gets leaked and now thieves in your neighborhood know your schedule!

    We need stronger laws about surveillance.

    • I don't give a shit about the cops knowing things about me. I don't commit crimes.

      This is literally the kind of thinking that got us here, to the point of surveilance capitalism. Because credulous people like you thing that wanting privacy means someone is doing something nefarious. How's that worked out?

      • I don't give a shit about the cops knowing things about me. I don't commit crimes.

        This is literally the kind of thinking that got us here, to the point of surveilance capitalism. Because credulous people like you thing that wanting privacy means someone is doing something nefarious. How's that worked out?

        What privacy do you have outside your walls? Let's assume you have a house for a second... if you do, then while your lawn is part of your property, and you can forbid others from trespassing, you can't forbid people from looking at it. Or at your doorway. Or your driveway. Unless you put up total privacy fencing, then everything outside your walls is legally accessible to eyes, both meat and electronic. And always has been. This is why city people have moved to the country for years. Because there your nei

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rujiel ( 1632063 )

          "City life has always been a surrender of privacy outside the walls of your domicile."

          The neighbors having knowledge of what you are doing is not the same thing as police or federal gestapo having on-demand knowledge of what everyone is doing, otherwise what do you think this article is raising concern about?

        • The lack of privacy is not new. What is new in the last 20 years is the lack of anonymity that mass surveillance has enabled. I did stupid stuff as a kid, but there was almost zero chance of my stupidity being filmed and uploaded for the world to laugh at.

      • Because credulous people like you thing that wanting privacy means someone is doing something nefarious. How's that worked out?

        Interesting idea, but I would respond with a counter-point...should your desire to hide your mistress override my neighbor's desire to stop package thieves?

        I am personally neutral. I don't cheat, but I also don't like my wife conveniently tracking when I leave and when I arrive....having the times on a spreadsheet....she's from a red state and constantly hearing about her relatives cheating with other members in their church...because that's what people do in FL...so when I am gone abnormally long, she

        • I don't cheat, but I also don't like my wife conveniently tracking when I leave and when I arrive....having the times on a spreadsheet....she's from a red state and constantly hearing about her relatives cheating with other members in their church...because that's what people do in FL...so when I am gone abnormally long, she gets nervous.

          One of two things is going on. She's been cheated on before, or you are doing (or not doing) something that is causing her to worry about it. Quite possibly both. I've been married for over 30 years. My wife and I have location sharing turned on. The primary purpose of this is if "something happens" the other knows were to start looking. There have been several instances over the years of people driving off the road and wind up trapped, missing for days. If one of us feels to the need to check on the

      • This is literally the kind of thinking that got us here, to the point of surveilance capitalism.

        No it is not. Government surveillance and corporate surveillance are different topics, in all aspects other than the fact that a camera is involved. Historically, the two technologies were developed separately and are not the consequence of one another. related to their purpose, amazon did not make Ring cameras to enable government surveillance, and governments do not put surveillance cameras in the public space to serve Amazon. You disagree on both, but that's you. Many people have opposite opinions, being

        • The only way you could be this intentionally ignorant is by being an industry shill. Your sophmoric "arguments" are typical maga-esque distraction and fantasy-stated-as-fact. Surely you aren't quite so small minded as to think it matters what the initial intention of any of these things may have been: all that matters is what they are now. You are being surveiled by provate companies that have been allowed to have more power than the government (they don't need pesky things like reasonable suspicion, pro

      • Surveillance capitalism? People in China live with far more surveillance, and they have their social credit scores diminished if they do something the CCP does not like.

        • Are you one of those people who think that two things can't be bad, or if one thing is worse it makes everything else acceptable? I've noticed a lot of this style of black-and-white thinking online. Very trumpian/toddler way of viewing the world.

    • You really think stronger privacy laws will happen in a country that wants to become an authoritarian shithole?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I don't give a shit about the cops knowing things about me. I don't commit crimes.

      Lots of people who get harassed by the cops don't commit crimes either. They tend to have certain attributes that seem to make cops suspicious of them.

      Anyway, you know the old saying, give me 10 lines written by any man and I'll find something in them to hang him. With a camera pointed at your house 24/7 I'm sure they can figure out some reason to bother you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )
      "Why don't you open the curtains and let some light in" they ask... Because every mother fucker has a surveillance camera these days Karen... every... fucking... one.

      This is before you try to explain to them that they're all uploading to the mother ship (Google, Amazon, MS, et al. ). after which they'll look at you gormlessly.
    • Start shining 1,000,000 candle power flashlights focused into their Ring's. Or have one mounted to point to it all the time. That will take care of the problem.

    • I'm having trouble understanding your frustration. It sounds like the camera told the truth about your neighbor who was cheating. What's not to like about that?

      • I'm having trouble understanding your frustration. It sounds like the camera told the truth about your neighbor who was cheating. What's not to like about that?

        Because it means your neighbors are analyzing your behavior...or at the very least can effortlessly do so. In the old days, they had to sit at their windows...it was tedious effort and most would give up...they had better things to do. Now they can get a daily summary of every person who entered and exited your house.

        Cheating is not for me. I have chosen never to do so, mostly because I have a good thing at home. Any man, who is fuckable, who has been married as long as I have has been tempted befor

        • You haven't lived in a small town, have you! Everything is everybody's business, all the time. This concept of "privacy" is a relatively new phenomenon.

          I do feel bad for the child, but not for the woman who screwed around and got caught. The thing about it is, these things don't stay secret, the truth always comes out sooner or later. Often, sooner is better because less damage has already been done. The presence of a camera only made the inevitable "outing" of the behavior, happen sooner than it otherwise

  • IF it's done right. Take an image of a lost pet, use AI to flag potential sightings on nearby cameras. But what then? How do you act on that without privacy issues? If you tell the owner of the camera, "potential lost pet sighting: share?" And let them confirm, that's probably okay. If you put a dot on a map without a photo that preserves privacy but false detections could lead to allegations of petnapping etc. If you just open up the feed to anyone, hell no.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The problem is that's how it's being sold.

      Ring themselves have shut off the surveillance tap for LEOs. However, they partnered with Flock Safety, a company in the news about their license plate reading cameras. And Ring shares video with Flock.

      Flock does allow warrantless access of video data with LEOs, so they're getting access to the Ring network indirectly.

      And Amazon has to sell this to cusomters as a "lost pet detector". There's ways to protect your pet - get them tattooed, get them chipped, put an AirT

      • The cameras are already there. Whatever agreements they have with law enforcement are already there. The AI is already there. Without endorsing any of that, given that it exists anyway, may as well offer a useful service. As someone who has spent sleepless nights wandering the neighborhood calling out, the option is appreciated.

  • UniFi (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrLudicrous ( 607375 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @11:44PM (#65983934) Homepage
    I use Ubiquiti cameras. Stores to my NAS. What I do with it is my choice from there. Never has to leave the premises if I choose, or I can back it up to a cloud solution of my choice, encrypted locally, remotely, or both.

    • Re:UniFi (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @12:14AM (#65983968) Homepage

      Dude, the discussion is about a commodity product millions of people are buying and using that requires next to zero technical aptitude.

      There's always a few adorable lunkheads who chime on these discussions about how responsible and well reasoned their decisions are, but for whatever reason they're unable to spot why that is fully orthogonal to the expressed concern. Unless you actually believe there is some reality in which the solution to the expressed concern is simply that if you just chime in enough, everyone is gunna just switch over to what they're doing?

      Like in this case the problem of 10 million Ring Doorbell owners is that 10 million Ring Doorbell owners are just find out about UniFi, buy a NAS, and replace their doorbells with Ubiquiti doorbells or cameras? (At like, generously speaking, 10 times the cost. Have fun running that PoE, grandma!)

      Honestly, I'm curious why you think your UniFi/NAS setup is germane to this discussion.

      • Harsh but true. To be fair, it is "news for nerds".

      • Re:UniFi (Score:5, Informative)

        by s0nicfreak ( 615390 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @01:05PM (#65985012) Journal
        I'm switching to Ubiquiti after learning it exists from a similar post on arstechnica. (In the long run it saves me money over Ring's monthly fee - not that that was a major reason to switch for me, I'm just pointing out that it is not 10 times the cost.) When people come to a discussion about why Ring is bad, it's valuable to let them know there are alternatives that don't have the bad things. Obviously everyone won't switch - not everyone comes to Slashdot and even here there are some people arguing that they don't see why this is an issue - but comments like what DrLudicrous said are helpful to people that want to.

      • Well, to point out what seems to be the obvious, both are cameras, but one protects privacy more than the other, which seems to willfully give up to whatever authorities with little concern for the end-user. I use the former.

        I am not an IT guy, so I am not sure what your point is: I don't have specialized knowledge others do not (I don't think I do) nor am I some sort of crazed hyperintelligent nerd who thereby can set up a UniFi Doorbell (mine didn't require PoE, I did have to swap out to a more powerful

    • This is a useless statement and is basically irrelevant, as the topic is the extant network of Ring cameras and its consequences. You're just interjecting with a personal detail. Vapid behavior.
      • A personal detail that is irrelevant is that I have cook a mean steak, speak fluent Spanish, or am capable of building an MRI machine from the ground up. The fact that Ring cameras have a functionality that others replicate without the privacy invasions is super on topic. Not sure how that's vapid, but OK.

    • I use an Amcrest camera on a private network to a NAS with Frigate on it. I also back up to a cloud service (B2) - which costs me about £30/month. Even with it paired down as low as I can get it for it to still be useful, it's many many times more expensive than a Ring doorbell.

      Doing it yourself might well be the "right thing" to do (which is why I do it that way), but man oh man, it's not going to catch on - it's way too complicated and way too expensive.

      Then again, where I live we have laws that pre

  • tomorrow in the news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday February 12, 2026 @07:47AM (#65984350)

    Tomorrow in the news: an overwhelming number of ring customers train their doorbells to hunt colored people.

  • Behind your back, it keeps your info, invades your privacy and does things you CAN'T control !!

    • Just as police body cams help keep police honest, doorbell cameras help keep neighbors honest. I'm in.

      • Are you really incapable of imagining how this surveillance footage can be anused ?

        You or your neighbors don't need to be comtting any crimes. Just having the wrong political opinion, or being associated with someone who does, could be enough for a malevolent actor to zero in on you. This oncludes bad government actors, many of which have been in the news, lately, in case you are living under a rock. They have even beem caught manipulating body cam fpotage with AI.

        At least you agree that this should be opt-

        • I hate to break it to you, but *you* and *I* are not important enough to be the target of a "malevolent actor".

          No, police have *not* been caught manipulating body cam footage with AI. Some YouTube influencer might be spouting such accusations, sure. But YouTube is a soapbox, not a source.

          • Actually, you have no idea. We are not important, until we are. I am still on the fence about wearing one of those Fuck Trump shirts I produce the next time I cross CBP the next time I land into the US, which is a mattet of days. I am afraid it wouldn't make the news if i got detained for this nowadays, though, so probably not worth it.

            And sorry, it wasn't video manipulation. It was photo. But not some Youtuber. This was reported in a variety of media.
            L

            https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/white-

            • Sure, if you make yourself a nuisance, you draw attention to yourself, and you do risk gathering attention you don't want. If you walk through an airport security line with a T-shirt that says you're going to blow up a plane, you're going to attract unwanted attention. There have always been ways to attract unwanted attention, this is not new with Trump. I do agree you should be allowed to wear such a T-shirt.

              So yes, your Guardian example is from "government actors" (i.e., Trump). However, *police* have not

              • I have been making those tshirts for 9 years. They just have those 2 words. They don't advocate taking any particular action, much less violent one. They have gotten attention from many people who see them, almost universally positive, both from Californians and foreigners during my trips, especially in the last year. The goal has never been to get in trouble, though. It's more about voicing discontent, through exercise of 1st amendment rights.

                A lot of people have been targeted for exercising their 1st amen

      • I have several security cameras and have honest neighbors. Cameras are for those I don't know and there aren't Ring cameras.
  • They clearly have both good and bad uses, but I wish I could know how many crimes these are actually preventing. Nancy Gutherie was still taken.

    • Nancy Gutherie was still taken.

      I saw on one news report where the timeline was established, that they didn't have footage to go back to because they didn't pay for the Ring subscription, so there was no past footage for them to go back to.

      When I saw this, I wondered about it...there will likely be a spike in people paying for the NVR subscription (good time to be an Amazon shareholder), but it made me wonder as to whether they *really* didn't have footage from a few days ago, or if they do and are intentionally not releasing it because d

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        Interesting. But it seems risky to mess around when law enforcement in sniffing around your building.

  • This is absolutely bad, and I'm not trying to say otherwise, however I am *curious* about a couple of things.

    First, what happens if you pull up "Search Party" and upload an image of a generic ICE officer? Will it show you where they are?

    Second, if someone were to be accused of a crime they didn't commit, how hard (or even possible) would it be to get Ring to hand over exculpatory evidence that they were somewhere else? How effective could it be as an alibi? For that matter, has the mass surveillance we alr

  • Apple will be so glad the outrage is focused on Ring and nobody is talking about their already for years existing AirTag troll-net that spans the entire frigging globe..

    Somehow privacy has truly become a thing of the past and people are embracing the invasions of their privacy, craving and loving them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jerrry ( 43027 )

      Tim Apple is too busy kissing Trump's ass every chance he gets to care about this, or anything else really.

  • I will never have Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc etc etc "security" etc in my home.

    And any "phone home" devices get exited quickly too. They have proven time and time again they can NOT be trusted.

  • And why not? We look out for each other. If there's an incident (which is rare) we would all share our videos with each other. Doorbell cameras are part of what makes our neighborhood safe. I really don't understand all the backlash.

    If you live in a neighborhood where people don't trust each other, maybe you're not in a very nice neighborhood.

  • The company has also partnered with Flock, a surveillance firm used by thousands of police departments, and launched a beta feature called "Familiar Faces" that identifies known people at your door.

    That didn't last long. Today Amazon announced that it was canceling the partnership with Flock. [ring.com]

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