Amazon’s Ring is rolling out a controversial, AI-powered facial recognition feature for video doorbells

Dystopian or useful? Amazon’s Ring doorbells will now be able to recognize visitors to your site with a new AI-powered facial recognition feature, the company said Tuesday. The most controversial feature, which was called “Familiar Faces.” It was announced earlier this September It’s now rolling out to Ring device owners in the US.

Amazon says the feature lets you identify people who regularly come to your door by creating a catalog of up to 50 faces. This can include family members, friends, neighbors, delivery drivers, household staff, and others. After you profile someone in the Ring app, the device will recognize them when they approach a Ring camera.

Then, instead of being alerted that “there’s someone at your door,” you’ll receive a personalized notification, like “Mom’s at the front door,” the company explains in its post. Launch announcement.

This feature has already received opposition from consumer protection organizations. Such as EFFAnd a member of the US Senate.

Amazon Ring owners can use this feature to help them disable alerts they don’t want to see — like those notifications indicating their comings and goings, for example, the company says. They can set these alerts on a per-face basis.

The feature is not enabled by default. Instead, users will need to turn it on in their app settings.

Meanwhile, faces in the app can be named directly from the Event History section or from the library of new familiar faces. Once a face is rated, it will be labeled in all notifications, in the app timeline, and in your event history. These labels can be modified at any time, and there are tools to merge duplicates or delete faces.

Amazon claims that facial data is encrypted and never shared with others. Additionally, unnamed faces are automatically removed after 30 days.

Privacy Concerns About AI Facial Recognition

Despite Amazon’s privacy guarantees, adding this feature raises concerns.

The company has a history Establishing partnerships with law enforcement agencies And even once gave the police and fire departments the ability to do so Request data from the Ring Neighbors app By asking Amazon directly for people’s doorbell shots. Recently, Amazon partnership with Flukemaker of AI-powered surveillance cameras used by police, Federal law enforcement, and ICE.

Ring’s security efforts have failed in the past.

Ring had to pay a $5.8 million fine in 2023 After the US Federal Trade Commission found that Ring employees and contractors had broad and unrestricted access to customer videos for years. that it The Neighbors app was also unveiled Users’ home addresses, precise locations, and user data Ring passwords It’s been floating on the dark web for years.

Given Amazon’s willingness to work with law enforcement and digital surveillance providers, as well as its poor security record, we suggest Ring owners, at the very least, be careful about identifying anyone using their proper name; Better yet, keep the feature disabled and just look to see who it is. Not everything needs an AI upgrade.

As a result of privacy concerns, Amazon’s Ring has already faced calls from US Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to report it. Give up this featureand is facing backlash from consumer protection organizations, such as the EFF. Privacy laws prevent Amazon from launching the feature in illinois, Texasand Portland, Oregon, as EFF also noted.

In response to Questions asked by the organizationAmazon said users’ biometric data will be processed in the cloud and claimed it is not using the data to train artificial intelligence models. It also claimed that it would not be able to technically identify all the locations where a person was detected, even if law enforcement requested such data.

However, it is unclear why this would not be the case, given Similarity with “Search Party” feature. Which searches through the neighborhood’s Ring camera network to find missing dogs and cats.

Reached for comment, EFF staff attorney F. Mario Trujillo said, “Knocking on a door, or even just walking in front of it, should not require giving up your privacy. With this feature going live, it is more important than ever for state privacy regulators to step in to investigate and protect people’s privacy and test the strength of their biometric privacy laws.”

Updated after publication with EFF comment.