Mit Ring haben amerikanische Verbraucher eine Überwachungsfahndung aufgebaut

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At Sunday’s Super Bowl, Ring advertised “Search Party,” a cute, horrifyingly dystopian feature nominally designed to turn all of the Ring cameras in a neighborhood into a dragnet that uses AI to look for a lost dog: “One post of a dog’s photo in the Ring app starts outdoor cameras looking for a match,” Ring founder Jamie Siminoff said in the Super Bowl commercial. “Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs.” Onscreen, an AI-powered box forms around a missing dog: “Milo Match,” it says. “Since launch, more than a dog a day has been reunited with their family. Be a hero in your neighborhood with Search Party. Available to everyone for free right now.”

It does not take an imagination of any sort to envision this being tweaked to work against suspected criminals, undocumented immigrants, or others deemed ‘suspicious’ by people in the neighborhood. Many of these use cases are how Ring has been used by people on its [dystopian “Neighbors” app for years](https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-ring-transmits-fear-to-american-suburbs/?ref=404media.co). Ring rose to prominence as a piece of package theft prevention tech owned by Amazon and by forming partnerships with local police around the country, [asking them to shill their doorbell cameras](https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-requires-police-to-shill-surveillance-cameras-in-secret-agreement/?ref=404media.co) to people in their neighborhoods in return for a system that allowed police to request footage from individual users without a warrant. 

Chris Gilliard, [a privacy expert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBgnjn5cC0&ref=404media.co) and author of the upcoming book [*Luxury Surveillance*](https://www.techpolicy.press/through-to-thriving-protecting-our-privacy-with-chris-gilliard/?ref=404media.co), told 404 Media these features and its Super Bowl ad are “a clumsy attempt by Ring to put a cuddly face on a rather dystopian reality: widespread networked surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement and other equally invasive surveillance companies.”

Ring’s poorly defined partnership with Flock in particular has been the subject of various viral posts and public backlash. Many people have suggested that this partnership is evidence that Ring camera footage will be shared with ICE. At the moment there’s not enough evidence to explicitly say that that’s the case. 

The supposed vector goes something like this: Ring says it will partner with Flock, which is used by thousands of local police departments. As we have reported, some of those police [departments have performed Flock license plate lookups for ICE](https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/). It’s too early to say whether Ring footage will eventually end up with ICE, but the fact that people immediately drew that conclusion and understood the possible method of information sharing shows that surveillance companies can no longer hide behind viral videos of delivery drivers dancing. It’s a mask off moment, and people know it: “In Amazon’s alliance with this administration, it’s become more clear than ever that Ring is an extension of the carceral state,” Gilliard said. “An emotionally charged Super Bowl ad won’t change that.”

Read more: [https://www.404media.co/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet/](https://www.404media.co/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet/)

I was 100% sure this would happen when it first launched 😀

Never understood why so many people feel they need these

I’ve done volunteering door knocking for candidates for elected office several years ago. Ring doorbells were creepy then, and I’ve hated them ever since.

Laugh at China, who had to pay for the same results, while the US managed to made their citizen pay for it.

Even worse, skilled criminals know that they can just bring a signal jammer when it’s time to do crime and they won’t get caught.

I’ve taken down our Ring cams and migrated to Reolink locally hosted. Works well with Home Assistant too.

wow nobody saw this coming. 

People really should take security experts concerns more seriously… this genuinely shouldnt be a surprise to anyone. Anything „cloud based“ shouldnt ever be used for personal security or anything where you value your own privacy and personal security.

Ring is a cool idea but no one should be surprised they turned it into a surveillance network

Wouldn’t be shocked if the refrigerators with the smart screens start to secretly record you.

Honestly I was never big into the smart home trend

Every house on my block has a ring camera door bell, including mine. The neighborhood teens even have a game where the goal is to ring the door bell without being seen on camera. It’s hilarious to see them belly crawl across a front yard.

„Dissent is Patriotic“

https://www.reddit.com/r/FlockSurveillance/s/kLTQY3EPfd

Ring installer here, we are done quoting Ring. Just spoke with my boss. No more Ring cameras. Fuck them

My new house came with a Ring and I abandoned it as soon as I could. The app is awful, the fact it doesn’t give you any history without a paid plan is a deal breaker. How this became one of the most popular is beyond me outside of the first to market advantage.

What the heck is everyone so afraid of. Get rid of the cameras. You don’t need them. The surveillance state is dystopian and gross.

The world of watch dogs is becoming reality

Articles like this make me appreciate that I’ve been too lazy to bother with any camera system in my living space. I just use ye olde peephole.

Removed my doorbell cameras, ended my subscription and I’m gonna throw out the whole system. Not even going to resell it, because these are instruments to create a government accessible panopticon more so now than ever before.