Ring Scraps Flock Safety Partnership After Super Bowl Ad Backlash
Ring just killed its deal with Flock Safety, and the timing is hard to ignore. Right after dropping $7 million on a Super Bowl ad for its 'Search Party' pet-tracker, the Amazon-owned company is backing away from a partnership that critics—including Senator Ed Markey—call a 'Trojan horse' for mass surveillance. While Ring says it’s just logistics, it looks more like a tactical retreat as the public starts realizing how their doorbell data actually gets used.
Ring killed its partnership with police-tech firm Flock Safety after its 'Search Party' Super Bowl ad backfired. Critics say using pet-tracking AI to normalize surveillance is a 'Trojan horse' for a massive domestic tracking network.
On February 12, 2026, Ring pulled the plug on its integration with Flock Safety. For context, Flock is the surveillance firm whose license plate readers are used by ICE and over 5,000 police departments. This sudden breakup happened just four days after Ring’s $7 million Super Bowl spot for 'Search Party,' an AI tool meant to find lost pets. Ring insists the partnership never actually went live and no data changed hands. But if it had? It would've essentially linked your neighbor’s doorbell to a massive vehicle-tracking web across the suburbs.
Amazon bought Ring for a cool billion back in 2018 and has been cozying up to law enforcement ever since. The 'Search Party' feature is clever marketing. It uses the same AI guts needed for facial recognition but wraps it in a feel-good story about finding a lost golden retriever. It’s a way to make persistent, automated scanning in our own front yards feel normal. Senator Ed Markey didn't mince words, calling the whole setup 'dystopianLoaded Language.'
“This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance.”
This isn't just about Amazon, though. Flock Safety is worth about $4 billion, and they need these integrations to grow their network without having to pay for all the hardware themselves. It’s a win-win for them and the police: local cops get a subsidized sensor network that would be a nightmare to fund through traditional government channels. Ring switched to an 'opt-in' model for police requests in 2021, but the tech is still built to ingest data at a massive scale. That hasn't changed.
Here’s what we don’t know: is Amazon using 'Search Party' footage to train its AI models? They won't say if clips of your delivery driver or the person walking their dog are deleted or kept to make their algorithms smarter. Curiously, Ring’s latest PR push tried to shift the focus to its role in a school shooting investigation at Brown University. It’s a classic move—framing surveillance as an absolute necessity for public safety to distract from the privacy concerns.
For most people, this is the tipping point where convenience hits a wall. Ring is going to keep tweaking its AI, but they’ll likely be much quieter about it next time to avoid another Super Bowl-sized backlash. The takeaway is pretty clear: that tech marketed as a neighborhood service is usually doing double duty as a silent partner for the state.
Summary
Ring just killed its deal with Flock Safety, and the timing is hard to ignore. Right after dropping $7 million on a Super Bowl ad for its 'Search Party' pet-tracker, the Amazon-owned company is backing away from a partnership that critics—including Senator Ed Markey—call a 'Trojan horse' for mass surveillance. While Ring says it’s just logistics, it looks more like a tactical retreat as the public starts realizing how their doorbell data actually gets used.
⚡ Key Facts
- Ring aired a Super Bowl commercial for its 'Search Party' feature, which uses AI to find lost dogs.
- Senator Ed Markey criticized the Ring ad as 'dystopian' and called for a ban on facial recognition on Ring devices.
- Ring has a partnership with Axon (formerly TASER International) to allow law enforcement access to footage.
Ring Scraps Flock Safety Partnership After Super Bowl Ad Backlash
Network of Influence
- Privacy advocacy groups seeking to limit tech surveillance
- Legislators like Ed Markey seeking to regulate Big Tech
- Competitor smart-home brands that market themselves on 'privacy first' features
- Digital rights organizations like the EFF
- The specific mechanics of how 'Search Party' works and whether it requires explicit user consent for each shared clip.
- The success rate of Ring cameras in assisting non-police outcomes like returning lost pets.
- The fact that most Ring features regarding police access became 'opt-in' rather than 'opt-out' following previous privacy controversies.
- A counter-perspective from users who feel safer with the technology.
The article frames consumer technology as a deceptive 'Trojan horse' for a police-state surveillance infrastructure, centering the fears of civil rights advocates while marginalizing the intended utility of the product.