{"id":15751,"date":"2026-02-13T11:35:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=15751"},"modified":"2026-02-13T11:35:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:35:48","slug":"ring-cancels-its-partnership-with-flock-safety-after-surveillance-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/02\/13\/ring-cancels-its-partnership-with-flock-safety-after-surveillance-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Ring Cancels Its Partnership With Flock Safety After Surveillance Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An interesting tidbit below is the cancelled facial recognition feature would have gone to Flock’s servers. I have a lot of posts<\/a> about Flock ALPR cameras and what a diabolical system it is for tracking people’s movements, not to mention being a security nightmare. Also, it’s been reported that the news lady’s mother who was kidnapped didn’t have a subscription for her Nest camera, and yet Google was able to retrieve the video and images shared of the kidnapper. Google Nest cameras send all video to their servers, but only hold 3 hours of video if you don’t have a subscription, yet Google was able to retrieve the deleted video? It’s conceivable that things are still on drives after deletion unless overwritten, so with the proper tools you can retrieve the data. Or is Google storing more than they say? Do we believe these tech companies when they make so many billions off tracking all of our activities? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/878447\/ring-flock-partnership-canceled<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Following mounting pressure and a questionable Super Bowl ad, the Amazon-owned company walked back its plan to integrate with the controversial law-enforcement technology company.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"STKS525_MASS_SURVEILLANCE\"\/
Image: Cath Virginia \/ The Verge, Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following intense backlash to its partnership with Flock Safety<\/a>, a surveillance technology company that works with law enforcement agencies, Ring has announced<\/a> it is canceling the integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement published on Ring\u2019s blog and provided to The Verge<\/em> ahead of publication, the company said: \u201cFollowing a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. We therefore made the joint decision to cancel the integration and continue with our current partners \u2026 The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statement goes on to say that Ring\u2019s mission to make neighborhoods safer \u201ccomes with significant responsibility \u2014 to our customers, to the communities we serve, and to the trust you place in our products and features.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust is the big one there. Over the last few weeks, the company has faced significant public anger over its connection to Flock, with Ring users being encouraged to smash their cameras<\/a>, and some announcing on social media<\/a> that they are throwing away their Ring devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Flock partnership was announced last October<\/a>, but following recent unrest across the country<\/a> related to ICE activities, public pressure against the Amazon-owned Ring\u2019s involvement with the company started to mount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flock has reportedly allowed ICE and other federal agencies to access its network of surveillance cameras<\/a>, and influencers across social media have been claiming that Ring is providing a direct link to ICE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While that claim is not accurate, as the Flock integration has never gone live, Ring has a history of partnering with police<\/a>, and the new partnership quickly came under intense criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ring\u2019s<\/a>
Ring\u2019s ad for Search Party showed cameras scanning a neighborhood.<\/em>Screenshot from Ring video<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adding fuel to the fire, this weekend Ring aired a Super Bowl ad<\/a> for its new AI-powered Search Party feature. While the company says the feature is designed to find lost dogs<\/a> and maintains it\u2019s not capable of finding people<\/a>, the ad raised fears that Ring cameras were being used for mass surveillance. The ad shows dozens of Ring cameras in a neighborhood scanning the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, the company recently launched a new facial recognition feature, Familiar Faces<\/a>. Combined with Search Party, the technological leap to using neighborhood cameras to search for people through a mass-surveillance network suddenly seems very small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) \u2013 a longtime critic of Ring \u2013 sent an open letter this week calling on Amazon<\/a> to cancel the company\u2019s facial recognition feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ring spokesperson Yassi Yarger said in an email that its products are purpose-driven tech, \u201cnot tools for mass surveillance.\u201d She added that \u201cFamiliar Faces is an opt-in feature designed to give customers more control over the alerts they receive (e.g., \u2018Mom at front door\u2019 instead of \u2018Someone at front door\u2019) while keeping their data protected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did Ring partner with Flock?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ring\u2019s partnership with Flock was announced in October 2025 as part of Ring\u2019s Community Requests program<\/a>, which launched last September. It was designed to allow local law enforcement agencies that use Flock\u2019s software to integrate directly with the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community Requests launched after Ring ended its controversial Requests for Assistance (RFA) program<\/a>, which consumer advocacy groups criticized for allowing video to be provided to police without a warrant, calling it a threat to civil liberties<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its statement about the Flock cancellation, Ring maintains that Community Requests will continue, claiming it helped authorities locate a suspect during the recent Brown University shooting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWhen a shooting occurred near Brown University in December 2025, every second mattered. The Providence Police Department turned to their community for help, putting out a Community Request. Within hours, 7 neighbors responded, sharing 168 videos that captured critical moments from the incident. One video identified a new key witness, helping lead police to identify the suspect\u2019s vehicle and solve the case. With a shooter at large, the community faced uncertainty about their safety. Neighbors who chose to share footage played a crucial role in neutralizing the threat and restoring safety to their community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As with RFA, Community Requests still allows public safety agencies to request video footage from users in a certain area during an active investigation, but it differs from the previous program because law enforcement agencies are required to partner with a third-party evidence management system \u2013 such as Flock \u2013 to use the service. Ring says this is to better maintain the chain of custody. The previous system allowed police to request footage directly from a user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flock was the second partner Ring announced for Community Requests, the first being Axon<\/a>, a law enforcement technology company known for making Tasers. With the new service, only law enforcement agencies that use these companies\u2019 software can submit requests. But the end result is the same: law enforcement gets video from users if they choose to share it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ring spokesperson Yassi Yarger says the Axon partnership is unaffected by the end of the Flock integration. Additionally, she says no other integrations are currently being explored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting tidbit below is the cancelled facial recognition feature would have gone to Flock’s servers. I have a lot of posts about Flock ALPR cameras and what a diabolical system it is for tracking people’s movements, not to mention being a security nightmare. Also, it’s been reported that the news lady’s mother who was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15752,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751\/revisions\/15752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}