Ring’s 'Search Party' ad sparks backlash over mass surveillance fears

Amazon-owned Ring is under fire following a Super Bowl advert for its new "Search Party" feature, which uses AI to help owners find lost dogs by scanning neighbourhood camera footage.

While the advert featured a heartwarming reunion between a girl and her puppy, privacy advocates and politicians warn that this "cuddly face" hides a much darker, "dystopian reality" of unchecked surveillance.

The controversy centres on the fear that technology designed to recognise a Golden Retriever could easily be adapted to track human beings.

Senator Ed Markey was blunt in his assessment on X, stating: “This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance.”

Concerns are heightened by Ring’s partnership with Flock Safety, a company that provides license plate readers to police and has reportedly shared data with federal agencies like ICE.

Ring spokesperson Emma Daniels maintains that Search Party is “not capable of processing human biometrics” and that the company’s facial recognition tools remain separate and opt-in.

However, Search Party is enabled by default for subscribers, automatically scanning cloud footage once a pet is reported missing.

Despite Ring’s assurances of "guardrails," experts remain sceptical. With founder Jamie Siminoff’s stated goal of using AI to “zero out crime,” the leap from finding pets to "hunting people" feels uncomfortably small to many.

As history suggests that powerful surveillance tools rarely stick to their original purpose, the question remains: can we trust the company to stop at the garden gate?