Ring, the home security company owned by Amazon, has officially begun rolling out its new facial recognition feature, “Familiar Faces,” to device owners across the United States. Back in September 2025, we revealed a pretty cool, new feature coming to our database. Powered by artificial intelligence, this groundbreaking feature provides customizable, person specific alerts at your door such as “Mom at Front Door.” The rollout of this new feature has already drawn intense backlash from consumer advocacy groups and alarmed members of Congress.
The “Familiar Faces” function allows users to name recognizable faces that show up on their doorsteps often. Once we match and name a face, it’s available to be tagged in every alert. In addition, it will be visible in the app’s timeline, as well as saved in the Event History. Ring doesn’t seem to care much about your privacy. They encrypt face data and promise it will never be sold to third parties. At that point the system automatically deletes all unnamed faces within 30 days. This allows only identified individuals to be retained in the database.
In the face of such assurances, backlash against the feature has been growing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the premier nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. They have vigorously opposed them, warning of the dangers of unchecked mass surveillance and attacks on individual privacy. We’re glad that Washington has finally heard their concerns. To our knowledge, a U.S. Senator has never publicly expressed their skepticism about the ramifications of rolling out this technology.
Ring’s lengthy history of security and privacy concerns only amplifies that danger. In April 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission slapped the company with a record $5.8 million penalty. The investigations found that Ring employees and contractors had near-total access to customer video footage for several years. Given the legislative focus on user trust and the company’s apparent inability to protect sensitive data, such incidents have caused alarm bells to ring.
Additionally, Ring’s Neighbors app has already leaked users’ home addresses and exact GPS coordinates, drawing criticism from privacy watchdogs. Just last week, reports surfaced that hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of Ring passwords have been for sale on the dark web for years. This raises big questions about the security of user data.
The company’s litigious rollouts paired with the company’s controversial partnerships with law enforcement agencies make it all the more complicated to get excited about the rollout of “Familiar Faces.” As it stood before this policy change, Ring previously gave police and fire departments the power to request user data directly from Amazon. This was particularly true when it came to access to doorbell footage recorded by users’ devices. Critics warn that these practices result in excessive and unnecessary surveillance of entire communities and thus an infringement on civil liberties.
By using cutting-edge technology to make their products more useful, Ring is continuing their legacy of innovation. It has an obligation to respond to and allay the very real concerns of privacy advocates and consumers. The company has since emphasized its commitment to keeping security a priority and to transparency in its practices.