Ring’s partnership with Flock is sparking renewed on-line backlash this week, with influencers calling for folks to smash their Ring cameras and claiming the corporate is a part of the surveillance state amid heightened concerns over ICE actions.
Flock is an AI-powered surveillance digicam firm that has reportedly allowed government agencies — together with ICE — to access data from its nationwide digicam community. Amazon-owned dwelling safety firm Ring introduced a partnership with Flock final yr as a part of its new Community Requests instrument. This permits native legislation enforcement companies to request footage from close by Ring customers when investigating an lively case.
“Ring has no partnership with ICE … and doesn’t share video with them.”
Based on reporting from Futurism, activists are pushing a grassroots marketing campaign throughout TikTok and Bluesky, telling Ring customers to do away with their cameras to forestall footage from being utilized by ICE. Nevertheless, Ring spokesperson Yassi Yarger instructed The Verge in an electronic mail that “Ring has no partnership with ICE, doesn’t give ICE movies, feeds, or back-end entry, and doesn’t share video with them.”
Yarger additionally mentioned that the Flock integration in query, which was introduced final October, will not be but reside. Menaing Flock doesn’t have entry to Group Requests.
“As we discover the combination, we are going to make sure the function is constructed for the usage of native public security companies solely — which is what this system is designed for,” she mentioned. Based on Ring’s support site, native companies are restricted to metropolis and county organizations.
Nonetheless, as soon as footage is within the palms of native authorities, it’s out of Ring’s management. Ring founder Jamie Siminoff has told The Verge that he believes widespread cameras can forestall crime. However as soon as deployed, the potential for such a large-scale native surveillance system for use for different functions could be very actual.
Since returning to the company final yr, Siminoff has leaned into his perception that extra cameras result in safer communities, launching Community Requests final September.
That is primarily a rebrand of Ring’s controversial Request for Assistance function, which was discontinued in 2024. Solely, as a substitute of direct partnerships with legislation enforcement, Group Requests works by integrations with “third-party proof administration platforms,” reminiscent of Flock and Axon, a Taser and body-cam firm.
Any native company partnered with both firm can request customers’ footage by the Ring’s apps. Based on Yarger, at the moment, solely the Axon partnership is reside.
Based on Ring, Group Requests sends a request from the native company to each the Ring Neighbors app and the Ring app’s Group Feed. The request seems to all customers within the space of an lively investigation, and a person can choose to share footage or ignore the request. Ring says nobody will likely be notified in case you ignore a request.
Easy methods to disable Group Requests and allow E2E
In case you don’t wish to take part in Group Requests, you possibly can disable it within the Ring or Neighbors app. Go to the app’s settings web page, discover the Neighbors Settings, then scroll all the way down to Neighborhood Settings, click on Feed Settings, uncheck Group Requests, and click on Apply.
Nevertheless, Ring — like many safety digicam corporations — might present footage to legislation enforcement without a warrant in what it deems an emergency.
To forestall anybody from accessing your Ring footage, you possibly can allow end-to-end encryption (E2E) within the Ring app.
Whereas your footage continues to be saved in Ring’s cloud, with E2E turned on, solely the cell machine you arrange the digicam with can view the video; it can’t be accessed by Ring or used for Group Requests.
Enabling E2E means you lose several features, together with individual detection, wealthy notifications that present a snapshot of exercise, and Ring’s new AI-powered descriptions, all of which depend on the cloud.
Whereas most cloud-based safety cameras encrypt footage in transit and at relaxation, they should entry it within the cloud to research it and allow these options.
Alternate options to cloud-dependent cameras
If you wish to keep away from cloud-dependent cameras totally, there are a number of different choices for keeping your camera footage private and secure.
As talked about, Ring cameras use the cloud to course of footage for options like individual detection; nevertheless, some safety cameras can course of video domestically and absolutely encrypt it earlier than sending it to the cloud. Usually, this requires a hub to course of the footage.
In case you are an iPhone person, Apple’s HomeKit Safe Video service is absolutely E2E encrypted. Video evaluation is finished domestically on a house hub, reminiscent of a HomePod or Apple TV, and saved in your iCloud account. It requires appropriate cameras, together with fashions from Eve, Aqara, and Eufy.
Anker-owned Eufy is one other firm that gives native storage and video processing for its vast collection of cameras and video doorbells. The corporate had some serious security breaches involving the cloud in 2022, however its newer HomeBase hardware can run domestically.
TP-Link’s Tapo, Aqara, and Reolink lately launched native hubs for storage and processing of footage from their cameras, and these corporations additionally provide cameras and video doorbells with onboard native processing and native storage by way of microSD playing cards.
The brand new Matter customary now supports security cameras, which may open extra choices for native, safe storage and processing of digicam footage.
Finally, any digicam linked to the web comes with the chance that it might be accessed by somebody aside from you, it doesn’t matter what the corporate says. So it stays vital to consider carefully earlier than including any sort of surveillance to your house or your neighborhood.
