Amazon's Ring will stop allowing police to request footage through its app

Our Take

Credit to NBC News for flagging this one: Amazon's Ring is shutting down the feature that let police departments ping users directly through the app and ask for footage. On paper, that's a real change — that tool normalized cops fishing for video without a warrant, one neighborhood at a time. But let's not pop the champagne. Police can still get Ring footage the old-fashioned way: subpoenas, warrants, or just knocking on your door and asking nicely. Amazon is closing one door while the rest of the surveillance house stays wide open.

And here's the bigger picture DeFlock readers already know: Ring cameras were never the whole story. While everyone debates doorbell footage, networks of automated license plate readers keep multiplying on street corners, gas stations, and HOA entrances, quietly logging where every car in town goes, every day, with far less public debate than Ring ever got. One company scaling back a police-facing feature doesn't slow that down one bit.

If you want to see how much of this infrastructure already exists near you, check our camera map and see what's watching your street. And if you're ready to push back on ALPR expansion in your own city, our take-action page has concrete steps — because the fight against mass surveillance doesn't end with one company's app update.