The police can’t just come and take your Ring security videos without a warrant, but they can ask for your captured video clips, all thanks for a feature in Ring’s Neighbors app.
That feature is called Community Requests, and it allows law enforcement officials to request Ring camera footage they believe might help them in their investigations.
For its part, Ring calls Community Requests a “completely voluntary” tool for “empowering our communities to play a role in public safety,” as well as an “important aspect” of its “mission of making communities safer.”
But the functionality has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates, who argue that the program (a newer and reworked incarnation of Ring’s earlier Request for Assistance effort) represents Ring’s “most invasive feature.”
Just this week, Community Requests have come under renewed scrutiny following word of Ring’s partnership with Flock, a network of AI-powered security cameras that (among other things) can scan vehicle license plates while also allowing police to search camera footage via natural-language queries, according to TechCrunch.
How Ring’s Community Requests feature works
When police send requests through the program, the details will appear in the public feed of Ring’s Neighbors app, and you’ll get a notification if your Ring camera was in the vicinity of a given incident.
If—and only if—you choose to help, you can select and upload individual Ring videos to investigators. Just be aware that if you do, your home address and email will be shared along with the video clips, and submitted videos can’t be retracted.
On the flip side, Ring promises that “no information is shared” about who viewed or ignored a Community Request, and that your camera footage is “not automatically shared with law enforcement.”
How to opt out of Community Requests
If you want to opt out of Community Requests entirely, there’s an easy way to do so.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
- Open Ring’s Neighbor’s app, open the main menu (just tap the three-line “hamburger” button in the top-left corner of the screen), then tap Neighborhood Settings > Feed Settings.
- Uncheck the box next to Community Requests.
- Tap the Apply button.
Once that’s done, you won’t see Community Requests from law enforcement in your Neighbors feed anymore.
This article is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best security cameras.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer, PCWorld
Ben has been writing about consumer technology for more than 20 years, and now focuses his reporting on AI as it relates to the basic human experience. His coverage of artificial intelligence interrogates the latest LLMs, and how they can be used at work and at home to be best prepared for the AI revolution. “AI is going to change our lives sooner than we think,” Ben writes. “Our best way to adapt is by using it every day.” Ben has been a PCWorld author since 2014, and has covered everything from laptops to security cameras before launching PCWorld’s AI beat. Ben's articles have also appeared in PC Magazine, TIME, Wired, CNET, Men's Fitness, Mobile Magazine, and more. Ben holds a master's degree in English literature.