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Amazon's Ring wanted to track your pets. It revealed the future of surveillance
Leaked emails reveal Ring's plans to expand AI surveillance beyond pet-finding, linking private cameras with law enforcement despite public backlash and canceled partnerships.
- During the Super Bowl, Amazon-owned Ring aired a 30-second ad promoting Search Party, then canceled its partnership with Flock Safety four days later amid backlash.
- Leaked internal emails show Jamie Siminoff, Ring founder, framed Search Party as key to reducing neighborhood crime beyond pet recovery.
- In the ad, Ring showed AI object recognition with MILO MATCH tracking a missing dog, while Ring's AI search finds people, pets, and vehicles and enables sharing via the Ring Neighbors app and Community Requests.
- Social media flooded with criticism, and a Ring spokesperson defended Search Party saying it does not process human biometrics, yet facial-recognition features on Ring cameras and Community Requests remain active.
- The episode highlights growth in commercial intelligence providers linking home cameras, license-plate readers, and data brokers, raising governance and civil-liberties concerns.
12 Articles
12 Articles
"Complete what we started": Leaked Ring emails suggest controversial tech won't stop at finding pets
Audiences were creeped out when Ring debuted a new AI-powered surveillance tool during the Super Bowl. Newly leaked emails show that viewers were right to worry. The doorbell camera company’s 30-second spot promoted Search Party, a feature pitched as a way to find lost pets via facial recognition technology. Emails from company founder Jamie Siminoff shared by 404 Media show that the company had no intention of stopping with dogs and cats. “I be…
Ring’s AI-powered Search Party won’t stop at finding lost dogs, leaked email shows
A leaked internal email obtained by 404 Media shows that Ring has bigger plans for its AI-powered neighborhood search capability than just looking for lost dogs. The outlet reports the email, sent last October by founder Jamie Siminoff to all Ring employees, says that with Search Party, "You can now see a future where we are able to zero out crime in neighborhoods." Ring, the Amazon-owned home security company, has come under intense criticism i…
Amazon's Ring wanted to track your pets. It revealed the future of surveillance
As a career counterintelligence officer for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Defense Intelligence Agency, I worked inside a fully integrated intelligence system. Signals intelligence from the National Security Agency guided investigations. Satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office provided visibility into hostile environments. Human intelligence came through Defense Intelligence Agency channels.
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