Leaked founder email says the quiet part out loud — Ring was built to spy on your neighborhood

Ring unveiled its controversial AI-powered Search Party feature in a multimillion-dollar ad that aired during the Super Bowl, sparking blowback from privacy advocates from left to right and dead center. Although the feature was positioned as a helpful way to track down lost pets and bring them home safely, a leaked email from Ring’s founder reveals a much more sinister purpose: Ring intended to spy on people all along.

Ring’s founder revealed the truth about Search Party

From the moment we heard about Search Party, one thing was clear — tracking down lost pets was only the tip of the iceberg. The obvious next step was clearly human surveillance. After all, Ring can already scan and identify designated humans with a feature called Familiar Faces. Once enabled, users can add the faces of friends and family to their Ring app so that their Ring camera can recognize these individuals when they stop by.

Ring can tap into the live feeds of every Ring camera in a town block and analyze the footage with AI.

Helpful? Maybe. Creepy? When you consider the way Ring wants to secretly turn Search Party into a mass surveillance tool, most definitely.

We know this for a fact now, thanks to a leaked email written by Ring’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, himself. “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,” he begins, pivoting immediately to a grander picture. “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.”

Of course, Siminoff hides “the impact” of Ring’s “mission” under the guise of preventing crime in neighborhoods equipped with Ring cameras. Reading between the lines, though, the truth looks more like Ring actively moving toward creating a mass surveillance state with its network.

For what it’s worth, Siminoff denies that Ring will tap into users’ feeds without their consent, assuring, “Across these features, sharing has always been the camera owner’s choice. Ring provides relevant context about when sharing may be helpful — but the decision remains firmly in the customer’s hands, not ours.”

The Nancy Guthrie factor

This story is especially unique in the context of the Nancy Guthrie case, where the FBI obtained footage from a Google Nest doorbell camera that was believed to be inaccessible. While social media was quick to pounce on how this could’ve happened, we later discovered that the loophole responsible for saving the footage is covered in Nest’s terms of service.

That didn’t stop Ring’s founder from commenting, though. Amid the hype over the case, Siminoff spoke with Fox Business to denounce that Ring would ever hold footage that was believed to be deleted or inaccessible. “I do know with Ring, specifically, if you delete a recording or if you don’t want a recording, you don’t have a subscription,” he said. “We do not have it stored. I know that because I built the systems with my team.”

RELATED: Amazon’s Ring is running a spy ring from your home. Here’s how to turn it off.

But just because Ring doesn’t keep video files doesn’t mean the footage goes to waste. With Search Party, Ring can tap into the live feeds of every Ring camera in a town block and analyze the footage with AI, essentially scanning them for whatever Ring is looking for. Right now, that’s lost pets. In a year or so, that could be real people — first criminals, then private citizens in general.

So the fact that Ring doesn’t save footage like Nest isn’t really any consolation when the company simply leverages live feeds to achieve its goals instead.

The only ways to opt out of Search Party

This Search Party revelation comes shortly after Ring canceled its partnership with Flock, a third-party service that would’ve allowed police officers to request user footage to help solve criminal cases. Without a law enforcement connection, Search Party is virtually useless in stopping crimes. That only leaves mass surveillance, which again, Siminoff refutes.

Wherever the truth lies, the leaked email is further proof that you should either disable Search Party or remove your Ring camera from your front door entirely. Unfortunately, as we mentioned last time, your camera is only part of the problem. As long as your neighbors keep their Ring cameras up and running, Amazon can still spy on your block whenever it pleases.