A Ring Retrospective

Remember to smile the next time you walk down your street, because you’ll probably be on camera. Millions of Americans now have their front doors decked out with doorbell cameras to record just about everything going on in their front yard. Dominant among the smart doorbell brands is Amazon’s Ring, which, if you’re a football fan, might have caught your attention recently.

During the Super Bowl earlier this year, Ring aired a commercial announcing the launch of a new feature called “Search Party,” which is marketed as a way for dog owners to utilize the networks of Ring cameras in their neighborhoods to find their beloved pet if they ever got lost. It was a good bit of marketing. As a dog owner, even my ever cynical self was happy to see technology once again be used for good. But, proving why it never pays to be optimistic (just joking…sort of), people a little sharper than myself began pointing out that technology able to recognize certain dogs through a network of cameras isn’t too far from being able to recognize certain humans, sparking a big controversy surrounding Ring’s expanding mass surveillance capabilities.

Mass surveillance appears to be a pretty common concern among Americans, but millions of us still get these doorbells because they’re sold as a way to keep our homes safe from would-be intruders. In exchange for peace of mind, we are entrusting Ring with massive amounts of data documenting our daily lives as we pass the lens of a camera connected to their cloud servers (provided you have a Ring subscription that offers video storage). In light of recent concerns surrounding the company, it’s worth asking whether or not we should trust Ring with that data. The company’s history indicates that maybe we shouldn’t.

The FTC Settlement

In 2023, the FTC required Ring to pay a settlement of more than $5.6 million over charges that, between 2017 and 2020, the company “allowed employees and contractors to access consumers’ private videos and failed to implement security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos.” This settlement was the result of a lawsuit filed by dozens of customers in December 2019 after they were tormented by death threats, racial slurs, blackmail, and more after their Ring devices were hacked.

Many of these privacy breaches occurred because “despite experiencing multiple credential-stuffing attacks in 2017 and 2018, Ring failed […] to implement common tactics-such as multifactor authentication-until 2019.” On top of that, when Ring finally attempted to implement better security practices, it was so poorly done that “hackers continued to exploit account vulnerabilities to access stored videos, live video streams, and account profiles of approximately 55,000 U.S. customers.”

In addition to the over $5.6 million settlement, the FTC ordered Ring to create a privacy and security program and required them to delete large swaths of data they had collected from customers without their consent. It appeared that Ring’s priority during this time was decidedly less about security for their safety devices and more about collecting data.

Now this is pretty old news, with the case wrapping up in 2023, but it’s worth remembering how poorly Ring has handled such sensitive data on us before. Especially when we consider that they have a very close relationship with law enforcement entities.

Law Enforcement Connections

The public scrutiny around Ring’s relationship with law enforcement can be traced back to 2019, when it was discovered that the company had entered into partnerships with over 250 police departments across the US (a number that would later expand to over 2,100 by 2022). Notably, Ring’s law enforcement partners were contractually obligated to only say what the company wanted them to about their collaboration, which often meant keeping even its existence somewhat secret. While the details of these partnerships varied, the police departments essentially served to promote Ring’s products and neighborhood watch app “Neighbors” in exchange for access to a portal where they could request Ring camera footage from customers without a warrant. Customers aren’t and weren’t ever required to comply with such requests, but Ring has a mixed record of making that fact clear to customers when these requests are sent out.

This “portal” that the police used to request footage has evolved a lot over the years. In 2021, Ring added the “Request for Assistance” (RFA) feature to their Neighbors app, allowing police to request footage directly through the app rather than through the previous system of sending out bulk emails. Eventually, this tool was shut down in 2024, much to the relief of many civil liberties advocates who were happy to see law enforcement could no longer mass-request Ring footage without warrants. But this relief would be short-lived, because in 2025, in partnership with the public safety technology company Axon, Ring launched “Community Requests” on the Neighbors app, which allows “public safety agencies to put out public requests for help and efficiently and securely collect and manage digital evidence.” Essentially, it was the spiritual successor of RFA.

Ring announced they would be expanding the Community Requests program to also partner with Flock Safety (a company known for an expansive network of surveillance technology utilized by law enforcement across the nation) in October 2025, essentially allowing police to make requests on the Neighbors app through Flock’s systems. This partnership sparked some particularly nasty controversy because Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year used police departments’ access to Flock’s systems to perform “immigration” related searches. Immediately, people began to worry that ICE, a highly unpopular federal organization at the moment, would be able to access Ring’s camera network, causing many people to either destroy or get rid of their Ring doorbells.

However, we never got to see if ICE would try to use Ring’s network because the Flock/Ring partnership would never actually happen. The wave of backlash caused by Ring’s Super Bowl ad last February was soon followed by the company cancelling their partnership with Flock, just months after announcing it would happen. Ring didn’t name the ad’s reception as a reason for cancelling the impending partnership, but it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the back-to-back controversies pushed Ring to make the decision.

The Big Picture

As I mentioned before, the videos Ring’s devices capture are highly valuable data, and Ring is responsible for protecting them. Now, Ring explicitly states in their guidelines that they do “not disclose user information in response to government demands […] unless [they’re] required to comply and it is properly served on [them].” However, this statement feels somewhat undermined when Ring is actively facilitating ways for police to request camera footage from the customers directly without the need for a warrant. Also, considering Ring’s past neglect with customer data, one could be forgiven for not trusting this promise at all.

Ultimately, we are left with one major question: is having such an expansive surveillance network worth it? If these cameras make us feel safer by deterring crime, then maybe having some parts of our lives being recorded is worth it. After all, what do we have to fear unless we’re actively breaking the law?

Unfortunately, evidence that smart doorbells like Ring’s are an effective crime deterrent is lacking, so the jury is out on whether they work as advertised. In fact, some argue that these doorbells have made “it easier for both private citizens and law enforcement agencies to target certain groups for suspicion of crime based on skin color, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin,” making neighborhoods less safe for minority groups.

It seems like Ring’s promises for safety, relationships with the law, and ability to protect customer data are all rather questionable. Considering the power they are gaining over our communities via surveillance networks and data collection, that’s fairly concerning.

Conclusion

Ring’s history has at least made me very hesitant to trust Ring with videos of me living my life day to day. But, though there’s debate surrounding whether or not Ring devices or others like it actually lead to an measurable increase in safety, they certainly help some people feel safe.

Unfortunately, many people are in situations where having these types of devices give them some much needed peace of mind.

It’s worth noting, however, that even if you consent to sharing data with Ring, not everyone who visits your house does, and Ring can still get videos of them regardless. Your family, friends, and even neighbors simply passing by are having data collected on them without realizing. If you or someone you know really benefits from having one of these smart doorbells, you can avoid putting those videos on Ring’s cloud by not getting a Ring subscription. Or you could get a different brand of doorbell camera that doesn’t store footage on the cloud.

But since Ring doorbell cameras aren’t leaving anytime soon, let’s just hope they catch our good sides.

Ring doesn’t seem to be inspiring much confidence in their ability to handle customer data, but your company can do better than them. At Crimson Vista, we offer several services that help companies find their weak points, improve their security posture, and, when the worst happens, recover their losses. Show your customers that you care about protecting the data they trust you with, and reach out to us to start making cybersecurity a priority in your company.

The FTC Settlement

Law Enforcement Connections

The Big Picture

Conclusion

Sources

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