Amazon-owned Ring has canceled its planned partnership with Flock Safety, the license-plate-recognition company, amid broader scrutiny of the potential for home security cameras to be used as tools for neighborhood monitoring and law enforcement.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Ring said the companies made a “joint decision to cancel the planned integration,” saying it “would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated.” Ring said the integration never launched and no customer videos were shared.
This comes days after Ring’s Super Bowl ad for its AI-powered Search Party feature for finding lost dogs caused a backlash from critics concerned it could be used for surveillance. That was despite Ring’s assurances that the feature gives camera owners full control over whether to share footage with the owners of lost dogs, mirroring its broader privacy policies.
The Flock partnership wasn’t directly related to the Search Party feature, but it was referenced in media coverage as evidence of Ring’s broader collaborations with law enforcement.
The partnership, announced in October, would have allowed local law enforcement agencies using Flock’s platforms to post requests for footage directly in Ring’s Neighbors app during active investigations. Ring users could then choose to share video or ignore the request.
Flock’s technology is used by thousands of police departments. Civil liberties groups including the ACLU had raised concerns that footage could ultimately be accessed by federal agencies.
Ring has said it has no partnership with ICE and does not share video with the agency.
The company’s Community Requests feature, which allows local law enforcement to request footage from nearby Ring users during active investigations, remains in place. Participation is voluntary, allowing users to choose to share footage or ignore the request.
Rival home security company Nest, owned by Google, is separately in the spotlight in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case, where investigators this week recovered video from a Nest doorbell camera that had no active subscription, with Google’s help.
Speaking with CBS News on Thursday afternoon, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff noted that Ring’s system is designed so that video data doesn’t exist for users without a subscription, distinguishing Ring’s approach from what happened in the Guthrie case.
Siminoff emphasized that the Community Requests allow police to ask for footage from Ring customers in a “privacy-protected way,” and said the system has already aided investigations, including a shooting near Brown University in December.
He also used the appearance to defend Search Party, saying the feature was built “privacy first” and comparing it to finding a lost dog in your backyard and calling the number on its collar.
Cats, he said, are next.
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