A Super Bowl ad for the popular home security company Ring has many on alert over its AI-powered feature called Search Party that puts entire neighborhoods under an Amazon-owned microscope.
With Search Party, users can report a missing dog in the Ring app, activating participating outdoor Ring cameras, which automatically scan the area for the lost pet and alert camera owners if a matching dog is detected. The camera owner can then choose to “share the information with the neighbor searching for their pet or ignore the alert,” according to Amazon News.
Such a feature could easily be repurposed for mass surveillance. While the company claims Search Party is for locating lost pets, what’s to stop it from being used far more broadly down the road?
Ring – Security or Surveillance State?
Ring’s 30-second Super Bowl ad cast the feature in a wholesome light, depicting a little girl who is desperately searching for her lost dog.
“Pets are family. But every year, 10 million go missing. And the way we look for them hasn’t changed in years,” a voiceover states as “Lost Dog” flyers pinned to telephone poles flash on-screen.
“Until now. One post of a dog’s photo in the Ring app starts outdoor cameras looking for a match. Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs. Since launch, more than a dog a day has been reunited with their family,” the voiceover continues. “Be a hero in your neighborhood with Search Party.”
The new feature was launched late last year around the same time that Ring – which Amazon acquired in 2018 for a reported $1 billion – announced a partnership with the security hardware and software manufacturer Flock Safety.
Both Search Party and the partnership raise important questions about privacy. “You go from individual surveillance tools into a giant mass surveillance apparatus for sale to anyone who has the money to buy it – including governments,” Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, told KSL.
But Ring’s website states that the company “does not disclose user information in response to government demands (i.e., legally valid and binding requests for information from law enforcement agencies such as search warrants, subpoenas and court orders) unless we're required to comply and it is properly served on us.”
This is quite the exception: “unless we’re required to comply and it is properly served on us.” Good thing governments are notoriously restrained when it comes to surveillance. Surely the authorities that placed speed cameras on every intersection and spied on moms at school board meetings would not take advantage of such a system.
At least Ring also “notifies an account owner before disclosing user information in response to a valid and binding legal demand” – unless, of course, the company “is prohibited from doing so or has clear indication of illegal conduct in connection with the use of Ring products or services.”
Notably, Ring associates “cannot activate and view live streams from your Ring device,” and the company also encrypts users’ videos that are stored in the cloud “at rest and in transit by default.”
Backlash vs Breakthrough
Still, the ostensibly heartwarming ad faced intense backlash online. “[R]ing search party is terrifying and what’s most terrifying is that we opted into this like f***king idiots,” comedian and podcast host Bridget Phetasy wrote on X.
“Do you see what I did there? I disguised mass human surveliance [sic] as a puppy search party,” posted Luke Cope, co-founder of the digital PR agency Bottled Imagination.
Search Party is part of Ring founder Jamie Siminoff’s effort to re-emphasize security at the company, which is highlighted in its new mission: "Make neighborhoods safer."
A quote from one of America’s great Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, comes to mind: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
