Ring has canceled its partnership with surveillance company Flock Safety, a decision the companies described as mutual, following backlash over the potential for increased police access to user footage.
The partnership, announced in October 2025, aimed to enable law enforcement to request videos from Ring doorbell users through Flock Safety’s Nova platform or FlockOS. Under the planned system, officers would have been able to access Ring’s Community Requests tool, specifying the incident’s location and timeframe, providing a unique investigation code, and detailing the investigation. Requests would then have been forwarded to relevant Ring users, who could have anonymously and optionally shared their doorbell footage.
Ring stated that the “planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” and the integration never launched. As a result, no Ring customer footage was transferred to Flock Safety. The company received backlash recently for a Super Bowl advertisement promoting its Search Party feature, which employs AI to detect pets across multiple camera feeds and match them to help locate lost dogs.
The advertisement prompted surveillance concerns among users, with some disabling the Search Party feature on their cameras in response. Ring’s decision to cancel the partnership comes after the company changed its policy in 2024 to commit to sharing videos with police only after receiving a warrant. Previously, Ring shared security camera videos with law enforcement without a court order or device owner consent at least 11 times.
The Flock Safety partnership would have resumed police collaboration after Ring distanced itself from such practices. Flock Safety operates automatic license plate readers that feed data into a centralized database, which police can search without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies claim the system aids in solving crimes such as kidnappings. However, a 404Media report from last year revealed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accessed Flock’s database for immigration-related investigations.
Ring confirmed that no customer videos were transferred under the unlaunched Flock integration. The partnership announcement followed Ring’s 2024 policy shift on warrant requirements for video sharing. The cancellation of the partnership is seen as a response to the growing concerns over surveillance and data privacy.
