Ring has canceled its partnership with Flock Security, after receiving backlash for working a Tremendous Bowl advert touting its Search Social gathering characteristic. If you happen to’ll recall, Ring revealed again in October 2025 that it was coming into a partnership with the surveillance firm, which might make it doable for regulation enforcement to ask good doorbell house owners for movies captured by their gadgets. In its announcement, the corporate mentioned that the “deliberate Flock Security integration would require considerably extra time and assets than anticipated.” The choice to name off the partnership was mutual, Ring added, and Flock Security’s integration was by no means launched. Apparently, no Ring buyer footage was ever despatched to Flock.
Beneath the partnership, regulation enforcement businesses utilizing Flock’s Nova platform or FlockOS would have been ready to make use of Ring’s Neighborhood Requests to ask for doorbell movies from customers. They’d have been requested to specify the placement and timeframe of the incident, in addition to present a novel investigation code and the main points about what’s being investigated. Their requests would then be forwarded to related customers, who may select to share footage from their doorbell. Ring mentioned the entire course of would have been nameless and optionally available.
Ring was identified to have shared safety cam movies to regulation enforcement with out a court docket order or the gadget proprietor’s consent no less than 11 occasions prior to now. In 2024, nevertheless, it appeared to have walked again its police-friendly stance and mentioned that it might cease sharing movies with the police with out a warrant. This alliance with Flock would have marked a return to police collaboration after the corporate distanced itself from regulation enforcement. Flock is thought for its computerized license plate readers and for centralizing the data it collects right into a database that police can search with out a warrant. Whereas regulation enforcement says the system might help them remedy crimes like kidnapping. 404Media reported final yr that ICE has been utilizing the database, citing immigration-related causes.
Whereas Ring’s official purpose was that the Flock partnership would wish extra assets than anticipated, it’s value noting that the corporate lately received flak for its Tremendous Bowl Search Social gathering advert. Ring touted it as a method to discover misplaced canines through the use of its cameras’ AI to establish pets working throughout their visual field after which pooling feeds collectively to establish lacking pets. Whereas Search Social gathering isn’t new and was introduced final yr, the advert sparked issues about surveillance and the way the tech may very well be misused, main customers to disable the characteristic for his or her cameras altogether.
