this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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637
Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Ring’s controversial, AI-powered “Search Party” feature isn’t intended to always be limited only to dogs, the company’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, told Ring employees in an internal email obtained by 404 Media.

In October, Ring launched Search Party, an on-by-default feature that links together Ring cameras in a neighborhood and uses AI to search for specific lost dogs, essentially creating a networked, automated surveillance system. The feature got some attention at the time, but faced extreme backlash after Ring and Siminoff promoted Search Party during a Super Bowl ad. 404 Media obtained an email that Siminoff sent to all Ring employees in early October, soon after the feature’s launch, which said the feature was introduced “first for finding dogs,” but that it or features like it would be expanded to “zero out crime in neighborhoods.”

“This is by far the most innovation that we have launched in the history of Ring. And it is not only the quantity, but quality,” Siminoff wrote. “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. You can now see a future where we are able to zero out crime 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.”

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[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 36 points 1 day ago (4 children)

You know.. here's the thing..

Years ago, I'd be on Reddit and reading the usual rants and raves about the government, and how the public should be wary of it and we are heading into a security state.. and I always positied that the real threat actors WRT privacy and security were going to be companies like facebook and google and the businesses that made internet-connected devices.

Compared to them, as far as data colleciton and surveillance of people - the government was filled with rank amateurs.

I'd consistently get downvoted or pooh-poohed for being "naive."

God fucking dammit.. on this.. I am absolutely pissed off that I was calling this one - and have been - for over a decade.

FML, I hate this SOOOOOO much.

[–] U7826391786239@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 day ago

edward snowden pretty much spilled the beans on government mass surveillance many years ago, but most people just said "meh...whatever"

[–] SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

Sounds like naked people in a cage wondering about which is more dangerous: the leopard or the lion.

[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

It's certainly frustrating pointing out obvious end results and seeing all the fanboys and normies call you a conspiracy theorist or just dunk on you.

There's no such thing as privacy anymore. People still believe it exists, but it's dead and gone.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can bet none of those people that argued with you and ridiculed your predictions will admit it now. That personality never will. How far back are we talking about with those predictions though out of curiousity?

[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago

Oooh, IIRC it dawned on me about the time that facebook insisted all users have their actual names on their pages. (I can't remember when that was, maybe 2012 or 2013? Not sure, it was a while ago however.)

That was the red flag for me.

It was also the point when I deleted my posts and comments on fb (it took months to get it all) then unfriended everyone and logged out for a month. When I logged back in I had a handful of comments on the (ex-)friends pages that popped up, since the feed will scour the servers to show you content on your home page, so I re-friended them, deleted the comments, logged out and waited another month. After the last time I logged in (I did four deletion waves of comments) fb was showing me totally random strangers "I Might Know.."

Perfect.

I then changed up my primary email on FB to my yahoo throwaway, logged out for another month, logged in with the new email and made a totally fake name for myself.. Who I am does not exist on facebook, nor are any friends or family listed as friends and no one can see anything on my page.