(Credit: Ring/YouTube)
Amazon-owned Ring has cancelled its partnership with Flock Safety after users raised concerns about surveillance.
“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. As a result, we have made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration,” Ring says.
Flock Safety operates a network of cameras to help law enforcement agencies with evidence collection and investigative work. Its partnership with Ring was supposed to allow police to request footage using Ring’s Community Requests program.
These requests are optional, and the police wouldn’t know who responded and who didn’t. Several camera owners, however, feared Flock and Ring would share videos with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for mass surveillance. Many even called for the removal of Ring cameras as a result.
What made things worse was a recent Ring Super Bowl ad that promoted a feature called Search Party. The feature aims to leverage Ring’s network of outdoor cameras to help people find lost dogs, but customers felt that it could also be used for human surveillance.
Both companies cited a lack of trust among Ring customers as a reason to end the deal.
“Technology plays a powerful role in helping communities prevent and solve crime… But that impact only matters if it strengthens trust and aligns with local community expectations,” Garrett Langley, founder and CEO of Flock Safety, said in a press release.
“Our mission has always been to make neighborhoods safer," Ring added. "That mission comes with significant responsibility—to our customers, to the communities we serve, and to the trust you place in our products and features." Since the partnership never launched, “no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.”
Amazon previously offered a similar program called Request for Assistance (RFA), which it phased out in 2024. Though 2,000 police departments across the country were thought to have used the feature, it was dogged by accusations of overreach and misuse among neighbors. In the fall, however, Ring revived the program under the Community Requests moniker and soon announced the partnership with Flock and a similar tie-up with security firm Axon Enterprise.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to PCMag that the Axon deal is still active. Ring's documentation for Axon-powered features says, "You can share relevant video clips if you want to help, or simply ignore the notification. If you ignore the request, the agency will not know; your anonymity and videos are protected. The choice is entirely yours."