Ring cancels partnership with Flock after backlash – what this means for its Search Party feature

Ring has cancelled its partnership with Flock Safety. In a recent post on the Ring Blog, the company said it was a joint decision, and stated that the “integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated” – here’s everything you need to know.

Ring announced its new Search Party feature late last year, an AI-powered feature that allows Ring cameras to track and find lost dogs in the area. At the time, it was only rolled out in the US but it was recently announced as part of a Super Bowl ad that it would be available to all Ring users.

When it was first announced, many users were hesitant about the feature as it was enabled by default on Ring security cameras, leaving many to feel that Search Party wasn’t optional, and that their videos would be shared without content and violate their privacy.

During this feature announcement, Ring also said it would be partnering with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that would allow law enforcement to ask video doorbell users for their footage if needed. Users would have been asked for the incident’s location, timeframe and a unique code to investigate details of a missing pet.

From there, the request would have been forwarded to relevant users within the area who could voluntarily choose to share their doorbell or camera’s footage. Ring stated that this process would be optional and anonymous but this didn’t give many users peace of mind.

This all culminated following a Ring advertisement as shown during the Super Bowl. While it promoted its Search Party feature and how it had helped locate many lost dogs already, many watchers raised concerns that the feature could be misused for more nefarious reasons, leading many to disable Search Party.

In its blog post, Ring went on to say that participation of the Search Party feature was “always voluntary” and that users had “complete control over whether to respond to a Community Request and what you share.”

But following these concerns, Ring has cancelled its integration with Flock Safety. It also stated that as the integration was never fully launched, no Ring customer footage had been sent to Flock.