Ring is canceling its partnership with Flock Safety after backlash from surveillance

After her severe backlash Partnership with Flock SafetyRing, a surveillance technology company that works with law enforcement agencies Announce It is de-integration.

In a statement posted on Ring’s blog and provided by L Edge Before publication, the company said: “After a comprehensive review, we determined that the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. We therefore made a joint decision to cancel the integration and continue with our existing partners… The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were sent to Flock Safety.”

The statement goes on to say that Ring’s mission to make neighborhoods safer “comes with great responsibility to our customers, the communities we serve, and the trust you place in our products and features.”

Trust is the big thing there. Over the past few weeks, the company has faced significant public outrage over its association with Flock, with Ring users cheering it on Breaking their camerasAnd some Advertising on social media They’re getting rid of their Ring devices.

It was a herd partnership Announced last Octoberbut in the wake of recent nationwide unrest regarding ICE activities, public pressure against Amazon-owned Ring’s involvement with the company has begun to mount.

Fluke reportedly allowed ICE and other federal agencies to do so Access to its network of surveillance camerasand social media influencers claim that Ring provides a direct link to ICE.

Although this claim is not accurate, since the Flock integration was never activated, Ring has History of partnership with the policeThe company quickly came under heavy criticism.

And then, to add fuel to the fire, this weekend’s episode aired Advertisement during the Super Bowl For the new Search Party feature powered by artificial intelligence. While the company says so Designed to find lost dogs-Keep the feature Unable to find peopleThe announcement quickly raised concerns about Ring cameras being used for mass surveillance. The ad shows dozens of Ring cameras in a neighborhood scanning the streets.

Moreover, the company recently launched a new facial recognition feature, Familiar Faces. Combined with the Search Party, the technological leap in using neighborhood cameras to search for people through a mass surveillance network suddenly seems very small.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) — a longtime critic of Ring — sent an open letter this week Call on Amazon To cancel the company’s facial recognition feature.

Ring spokesman Yassi Yarger said in an email that its products are purpose-driven technology, “not tools for mass surveillance.” “Familiar Faces is a subscription feature designed to give customers more control over the alerts they receive (for example, ‘Mom’s at the front door’ instead of ‘Someone’s at the front door’) while keeping their data protected,” she added.

Why did Ring team up with Flock?

Ring’s partnership with Flock was announced in October 2025 as part of Ring’s Community Requests ProgramWhich was launched last September. It is designed to allow local law enforcement agencies that use Flock software to integrate directly with the software.

Community requests were launched after Ring ended The controversial Requests for Assistance (RFA) program.which consumer advocacy groups criticized for allowing the video to be provided to police without a warrant, calling it… A threat to civil liberties.

In its statement about Flock’s cancellation, Ring confirmed that community requests will continue, claiming that it helped authorities locate a suspect during the recent shooting at Brown University:

“When 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 plea. Within hours, 7 neighbors responded, sharing 168 videos that captured critical moments from the incident. One video identified a new key witness, helping police identify the suspect’s vehicle and solve the case. With a shooter on the loose, the community faced uncertainty about their safety. Neighbors who chose to share played “The footage plays a critical role in neutralizing the threat and restoring safety to their community.”

As with RFA, Community Requests still allows public safety agencies to request video footage from users in a specific area during an active investigation, but differs from the previous program because law enforcement agencies are required to partner with a third-party evidence management system — such as Flock — 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 the user.

Flock was the second partner announced by Ring for community requests, its first Being Axuna law enforcement technology company known for manufacturing stun guns. With the new service, only law enforcement agencies that use these companies’ software can submit requests. But the end result is the same: law enforcement gets videos from users if they choose to share them.

Ring spokesman Yassi Yarger says the Axon partnership was not affected by the end of the Flock integration. Additionally, it says no other integrations are currently being explored.