Less than two years after removing a feature that made it easier for law enforcement agencies to request footage from owners of Ring doorbells and other security products, Amazon has partnered with two companies that will help facilitate the same kinds of requests.
Two weeks after rolling out a new product line for 2025, Ring, owned by Amazon, announced a partnership with Flock Safety, as part of its expansion of the Community Requests feature in the Ring Neighbors app. Atlanta-based Flock is a police technology company that sells surveillance technology, including drones, license-plate reading systems and other tools. The announcement follows a partnership Ring entered into with Axon, previously Taser International, which also builds tools for police and military applications.
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Taken together, the two partnerships point to Amazon’s Ring division not only reintroducing tools for police to request images or video from Ring customers without a warrant but also to a closer alignment with companies that have ties to police departments, ICE, the Secret Service and branches of the military.
In one of its blog posts, Ring described the process for Community Requests. It said an agency that is verified with Axon Evidence, which is owned by Axon, could submit a community request that includes a specific location and timeframe of an incident and details about what’s being investigated.
The request would appear publicly in the Neighbors feed for people in that area, notifying them with the option to provide footage for that incident.
“If you ignore the request, the agency will not know; your anonymity and videos are protected. The choice is entirely yours,” Ring said in the post.
According to the post, video footage submitted goes directly to Axon Evidence, where it is verified for authenticity.
Community Requests are ‘local,’ according to Ring
In an email response to CNET, a representative for Ring reiterated the process for Community Requests, adding that “only local public safety agencies can initiate Community Requests.”
The localized area that is submitted is limited to half a square mile, and those agencies don’t have access to information on who will receive a request to share footage or how many Ring users are in a given area, according to Ring. The company says those requesting information must follow community guidelines.
It’s unclear if “local public safety agencies” may include local branches of federal agencies such as the FBI or Homeland Security.
The partnerships Amazon has entered into would give those agencies more entry points for creating these requests. Amazon hinted in one of its blog posts that it may add partnerships with other companies. Community Requests can only come from agencies that have been verified by a third party, such as Flock or Axon, and by Ring as well.
Back in 2018, when Flock Safety was a nascent startup, it set up its own cameras in neighborhoods to provide surveillance to fight crime.
