Amazon Ditches Partnership with Surveillance Firm After Super Bowl Ad Backlash

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Amazon’s Ring Cancels Partnership with Flock Safety

Amazon’s smart doorbell company Ring has terminated its partnership with Flock Safety, a police surveillance technology firm, following a review that determined the integration would require significant resources.

Planned Integration and Community Requests

The planned integration, announced last year, would have allowed Ring camera owners to share video footage with law enforcement agencies through a feature called Community Requests. However, the integration never launched, and no Ring customer videos were shared with Flock Safety.

Flock Safety’s Operations and Controversies

Flock Safety operates automated license-plate reading systems in thousands of communities across the US, capturing billions of photos of license plates each month. The company has faced public outcry over its technology, particularly amid the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.

According to Flock, it does not partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or contract with any subagency of the Department of Homeland Security for direct access to its cameras.

The company has paused pilot programs with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. Flock also notes that it does not own the data captured by its cameras, and if a police department chooses to collaborate with a federal agency like ICE, the company has no ability to override that decision.

Ring’s Surveillance Concerns

Amazon’s Ring has faced surveillance concerns over its doorbell cameras, particularly after a Super Bowl ad featuring its Search Party feature, which uses artificial intelligence to track lost items.

The ad sparked fears of a dystopian surveillance society, with some critics expressing concerns that the feature could be used to track humans.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on civil liberties related to digital technology, has warned that Americans should be unsettled by the potential loss of privacy.

The foundation noted that Ring’s products already integrate biometric identification, such as face recognition, through features like “Familiar Faces.”

Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts has urged Amazon to discontinue its “Familiar Faces” technology, citing public opposition to Ring’s constant monitoring and invasive image recognition algorithms.