Doorbell camera company Ring joins forces with more than 400 police departments

Our Take

Local 12's segment puts a friendly face on something that should raise eyebrows: a private doorbell camera company acting as a data pipeline for hundreds of police departments. Ring markets this as neighborly cooperation, but what it actually builds is a decentralized, privately-owned surveillance network that police can tap into with far less oversight than a public camera system would require. "Neighborhood Watch" implies your neighbors are watching out for you — not that footage from your porch can be requested, shared, or pulled into a law enforcement database you never consented to join.

This matters because Ring cameras don't operate in isolation. They're part of the same surveillance ecosystem we track here at DeFlock — one that increasingly includes automated license plate readers like Flock Safety's, which quietly log every vehicle that passes regardless of suspicion. Doorbell cameras capture faces and porches; ALPRs capture your entire driving life. Together, they let police reconstruct movements and patterns without a warrant, often through partnerships the public barely knows exist. Credit to Local 12 for surfacing the scale of Ring's police partnerships — 400+ departments is a number worth sitting with.

If you want to see how this kind of infrastructure looks in your own neighborhood, check our camera map to find nearby ALPRs, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back on unchecked surveillance partnerships before they become permanent fixtures of everyday policing.