Doorbell camera firm Ring has partnered with 400 police forces, extending surveillance concerns

Our Take

Credit to TWO CATS U.S. Political News for surfacing numbers on just how many police departments have cut deals with Ring to request homeowner footage. On paper it sounds voluntary — you can say no, and cops don't get live feeds. In practice, it's a masterclass in normalizing surveillance one polite email at a time. "Thanks for making your neighborhood safer" is the kind of copy you write when you want people to feel good about opting into a system they'll never fully understand the reach of.

This is the same playbook we track every day with Flock Safety and ALPR networks: a private company builds the infrastructure, law enforcement gets frictionless access without a warrant, and the public is left guessing how many of these arrangements even exist because none of it requires a public vote. Ring's 400+ partnerships were only reported because someone went digging — the company wasn't volunteering that number. That's the pattern. Camera networks scale fast, oversight doesn't.

Doorbell cams watch porches; Flock cameras watch every car that passes a intersection, building a searchable log of your movements. Different hardware, same fight. If you want to see how many ALPR cameras are already logging traffic in your own area, check our camera map, and if you'd rather do something about it than just worry about it, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the city council level.