Ring’s Search Party feature, initially marketed as a helpful tool for finding lost pets, has sparked new privacy concerns after leaked internal emails revealed the company’s surveillance ambitions.
The documents suggest Ring intends to expand the technology far beyond its wholesome public messaging about reuniting families with their dogs.
Search Party, launched in September, networks together Ring cameras in neighborhoods to automatically identify and track lost dogs using advanced object recognition technology. The feature operates by allowing users to upload photos of their missing pets, which the system then searches for across participating cameras in the area.
While Ring promoted this capability through a high-profile Super Bowl advertisement, the rollout triggered immediate backlash from privacy advocates who recognized the implications of facial recognition-style technology being deployed across residential networks.
Internal emails obtained by 404 Media show Ring founder Jamie Siminoff telling employees the dog-finding feature represents just the beginning. “This is by far the most innovation that we’ve launched in the history of Ring,” Siminoff wrote to staff shortly after the September launch. “I believe that the foundation we created with Search Party, first for finding dogs, will end up becoming one of the most important pieces of tech and innovation to truly unlock the impact of our mission.”
The key phrase “first for finding dogs” directly contradicts Ring’s public statements positioning Search Party as exclusively a pet recovery tool. Siminoff continued by connecting the technology to cr*me prevention: “You can now see a future where we are able to zero out cr*me in neighborhoods. So many things to do to get there, but for the first time ever, we have the chance to fully complete what we started.”
This language points to Ring’s original mission before the company softened its approach following earlier controversies. When Ring first gained prominence, it heavily promoted partnerships with law enforcement agencies. After substantial public criticism in 2018 through 2020, Ring scaled back these partnerships and rebranded toward package theft prevention and general home monitoring.
Siminoff left Ring in 2023, during which time the company further distanced itself from overt surveillance messaging. His return in 2024 appears to signal a return to the original vision. Additional leaked emails show Siminoff writing to employees after a high-profile incident, emphasizing the importance of tools that create connections between residents and law enforcement agencies.
Ring recently reintroduced a feature called Community Requests, developed in partnership with Axon, the major police contractor known for body cameras, tasers, and law enforcement software. The tool allows police departments to request camera footage from Ring users about specific incidents, effectively recreating a capability Ring had previously discontinued due to privacy concerns.
The company opted users into Search Party by default, requiring them to manually disable the feature if they wished to maintain privacy. Ring’s official response to the leaked emails emphasized that Search Party “helps camera owners identify potential lost dogs using detection technology built specifically for that purpose. It does not process human biometrics or track people.”
However, critics note that the underlying technology capable of distinguishing individual dogs from one another could easily be adapted for human identification. Privacy experts have compared the trajectory to other platforms that introduced controversial features incrementally, such as Citizen, which added paid alerts about registered individuals living in neighborhoods.
Ring’s technology cannot address white-collar offenses, domestic violence, or most categories of serious c*ime. Instead, the focus remains on visible, property-related incidents that generate complaints on neighborhood social networks: package theft, vandalism, and trespassing.
Even for these narrow categories, the effectiveness remains questionable. Video footage of package theft rarely leads to arrests or recovered property, as law enforcement agencies generally lack resources to pursue such cases. This reality has led some observers to speculate that Ring’s long-term strategy may involve partnering with private security companies capable of responding to incidents, rather than relying solely on overburdened police departments.
