Amazon's Super Bowl commercial about its AI pet-tracking feature Search Party quickly sparked a discussion about privacy, ICE overreach and the growing fear of a police state in the US. If Ring security cameras can track pets this way, could they do the same for humans? Are they already doing it to humans? And are they sharing AI surveillance with law enforcement?
Ring's commercial brought those concerns to a fever pitch, with many online concerned about police surveillance, especially AI surveillance. It didn't help that Ring has been known to share information with police in the past. People warned that a system that could surveil dogs could also be used to detect individual humans, and clips of owners destroying their Ring devices went viral.Â
Read more:Â What Can You Legally Share About ICE Raids on Social Media? I Found Out
So, is human surveillance a concern because of Search Party? Not the way it works now, especially since Ring has abruptly ended its partnership with controversial surveillance company Flock.Â
Here's how Search Party currently works and how you can turn it off for more privacy.
How does Search Party work, exactly?
Search Party uses AI to find lost dogs, something no other security brand is doing.
Search Party is a part of the Ring Neighbors platform, available on the Ring app, to let people share information about local events or help needed. If a Ring account holder loses a pet, they can use the Search Party function to upload a photo of their dog as a pet profile and activate a free search.
Search Party then scans nearby Ring accounts to see whether any recent videos were uploaded after an animal was detected. Using Ring's AI, the feature automatically looks for animals that resemble the photo of the lost pet.
If a match is found, Search Party alerts the pet owner to the general location where a similar animal was spotted. It also notifies the Ring device owner, who can decide whether to share the video with the pet owner and other neighbors on the Neighbors platform.
Is Search Party an opt-in feature?
The basic Search Party function is opt-out, meaning it's automatically enabled for Ring devices that save video to the cloud. Sharing video clips with a pet owner is a separate opt-in feature; you'll get an alert, but have to manually choose to send video to a stranger.
Does Search Party share my videos with other people?
Ring's Super Bowl announcement didn't give many details on how Search Party works.
Not automatically, no. The videos in the cloud stay hidden, and Ring encrypts those videos when they aren't being used, as well as offering end-to-end encryption for certain plans. The only way other people can see your saved Ring videos is if you receive a notification that someone has started a Search Party in your area and one of your videos has a match. Then you have to specifically agree to send that video to the person who started the Search Party.
Does Search Party use my camera's live view?
No. Search Party appears to only use saved videos in Ring's cloud. It won't start recording new video that wouldn't otherwise be triggered by your motion detection settings, and it doesn't seem to use live camera feeds.
Does Search Party mean Ring is looking at my videos?
No, not directly. Ring's AI service automatically analyzes videos. Ring associates (the people who answer when you call customer service) can't access stored videos.
As for Ring specialists viewing videos, the company has laid out a clear policy:
"Employees are not able to view, access, or control live streams. To help improve Ring's products, services, and technology, our research and development team views a small number of video recordings. These video recordings are either from users who have made them publicly available (by posting them on Neighbors or otherwise on the Internet), or from users, team members, and their friends and family who have given us explicit permission to use them for this purpose (which they may revoke at any time)."
Ring is presumably using these publicly available videos to train its AI, among other purposes.
Can I disable Search Party?
You can turn off Search Party features for your cameras whenever you want.Â
Yes, but you have to know where to go. Open the Ring app, then select the hamburger menu, then Control Center. Scroll down until you find Search Party. Here you can select Enabled to disable the feature, camera by camera. Â
What if I don't want Ring's AI to examine my videos at all?
Never opt into any video sharing, and never post videos on Ring Neighbors. For complete privacy, avoid signing up for a Ring plan and don't use Ring's video cloud storage.
Avoiding Ring's cloud creates other issues. Without a plan, valuable object detection services won't work, and Ring doesn't offer many onboard video storage options.
Are there security brands that don't analyze my videos?
Ring's latest doorbells have a resolution bump and new smart features, but you really need a plan to use them.
If a security camera offers any kind of AI detection, it likely can analyze your videos, though you typically have to give consent or sign up for a plan for that to happen (or post videos publicly on their platform).
If that gives you privacy heebie-jeebies, your best bet is to avoid cloud video storage altogether and stick with local video storage on a hub or microSD card. Many brands offer local storage, including Eufy, Blink, Tapo, Reolink and Wyze. Wyze, in fact, was very quick to jump into the conversation with a tongue-in-cheek commercial of their own (note that Wyze offers free animal recognition with their cameras, which doesn't function anything like Search Party).Â
What about Ring and Flock surveillance connections?
Ring did have a pending contract with the Flock surveillance company, which had not yet gone into effect. This contract would have allowed local law enforcement (and potentially federal agencies) to request security video footage from people on the Ring Neighbors platform. Given current events, such as numerous ICE protests around the country, people were particularly worried that such a partnership could lead to AI identification and arrest of, well, anyone police had footage of.
Ring has now responded to these worries by canceling its partnership with Flock. Actually, that happened so fast, I suspect it may have already been in the works. Ring has a particular interest in avoiding bad press around this topic, which leads me to my last question.
Does Ring share video directly with the police?
That's a complicated question. Ring has pulled back on casual data sharing with police since 2024. Police can still get videos from security companies, typically through either a warrant signed by a judge or by making a special life-or-death request to companies, as with kidnappings, as we saw in the Nancy Guthrie case.Â
I have more information about people seizing video in my complete guide here, which is worth a read if you're worried. Ring has now canceled its Flock partnership due to all the backlash, and Search Party is unlikely to be applied to humans in the near future.Â