Cities join Amazon in ending contracts with Ring license scanner following Super Bowl announcement

In a controversial, but widely shared, ad that debuted during the Super Bowl, Amazon’s Ring ad showed a user uploading a photo of a missing dog so that homes participating in Ring’s “Search Party” feature could scan their snapshots to find that missing dog. What began as a poignant story of reunification has culminated in millions of Americans being shocked by how “terrifying” technology is, and how it can be manipulated for nefarious purposes, such as tracking individuals and finding their current whereabouts.

The ad showed off Ring’s “Search Party” feature, which is noticeably different from the community request feature that Ring and Flock initially partnered with to integrate technologies into. bell It has been terminated Its contract is with Flock Safety, an AI-powered license reader used by police departments (or previously some) across the country. Fluke, a company that sells networks of roadside cameras and software to police departments, businesses and neighborhoods to identify vehicles and feed that data into searchable law enforcement databases, is active in more than 5,000 US cities. The software scans license plates and uses built-in video tools to record plates, time and location, then alerts police when a vehicle matches a “hot list” or is linked to an investigation.

But Ring’s Super Bowl commercial, aside from the fact that it showed off Ring technology and not Flock’s, left millions weary of the software company’s big camera and data network, and how it could easily be repurposed not only for scanning license plates but for other things as well.

“Flock’s intended integration with community requests has been cancelled,” a Ring spokesperson said. luck. “This integration was never live, and no videos were ever shared between these services. After a thorough review, we determined that the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. We therefore made a joint decision to cancel the integration.”

The move occurred amid rising concerns about privacy, civil liberties and the role of private technology companies in federal law enforcement activities.

A Fluke spokesman said luck: “We didn’t know the Super Bowl ad was coming, and we had nothing to do with it.”

Instead, Flock and Ring agreed that integration to improve community requests would be difficult under current resources, the Flock spokesperson added.

Now cities are following suit and canceling their contracts with the software company. Cities from Flagstaff, Arizona, to Windsor, Connecticut, join more than 30 others across the country that have either suspended, if not ended their partnership with Fluke.

Since the beginning of 2025, at least 30 cities have canceled their contracts with Fluke, including Eugene, Oregon; Hillsboro, North Carolina; and Santa Cruz, California. Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett said NPR The “community outrage” made it clear that the technology would not be received even with high hopes for using the technology.

“Ultimately, it was clear that this was not going to be a technology that was going to be well received or that we could continue to use,” Daggett said. NPR.

“I think the mayor said it almost better than I could say it myself,” a Fluke spokesman said. luck. “Communities that remove Flock are doing themselves a disservice, without actually addressing the underlying concerns at hand,” the spokesperson added, saying the company has put in place guardrails to work with communities to address any privacy concerns they may have.

“Flock is able to configure our system so that it can align with any community or any state’s local laws and values,” the spokesperson said, referring to the company’s work in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., both cities having regulations that prevent license plate readers from working with immigration enforcement — something Flock was already allied with. “We actually have encrypted guardrails that prevent that. So we have a filter that will block any immigration searches that are automatically applied throughout California.”

Other cities echo this sentiment. “For the past several years, the Windsor Police Department has had a collaborative relationship with Flock Safety,” said the Windsor, Connecticut, Assistant City Manager. luck. “The department has used technology as one of many tools intended to assist in investigations, locating stolen vehicles, and missing persons. While the cameras have contributed valuable investigative information, they have always represented only one element of our overall public safety strategy.”

Even major metropolitan departments began to fall back on Flock’s standard terms. Boston Massachusetts Police Department American Civil Liberties Union They demanded changes to their user agreement to ensure they could restrict data sharing, overriding Flock’s default provision that gives the company a “global, perpetual, royalty-free” license to disclose the agency’s data for “investigative purposes.”

The dismantling of the flow continues

Jimmy Siminoff, Ring’s founder who recently returned to the CEO role to re-embrace the company’s original mission of “fighting crime,” expressed deep disappointment with the public’s reaction. In a series of thoughts on the feature’s launch, Siminoff defended the tool’s usefulness and privacy protection.

Later, addressing the widespread criticism, Semenov said: “It was a shame.” luck. “It’s the misunderstanding that makes me sad, because it seems as if people have kind of created their own version of how this works.” He stressed that the system is completely voluntary, explaining that if a neighbor chooses not to share the footage, “your privacy is absolutely fine, no one knows.” Siminoff emphasized that the digital system was just a more efficient version of calling a phone number on a dog tag, adding: “I think it’s a very good thing for the world.”

The Flock-Ring deal, announced in October 2025, was intended to integrate Ring’s “community requests” feature with Flock’s software, allowing police to request and receive footage from private homes more easily.

The partnership has come under scrutiny due to Fluke’s reported ties to federal agencies. But a Fluke spokesperson denounced these rumours, saying: “We have no contradiction with any of them, which means they cannot directly access the data on the platform.”

Public anger has increased. The application is open source DeFlock.org Recently launched to track the location of more than 77,000 AI-powered license plate readers across the country, the app’s creators argue that the scanners have created a detailed “location history” of ordinary residents, leading to racial profiling and potential stalking by officers. The technology only shows a license plate in one place at one point and one place in time, a Flock spokesman said.

The company is working to implement more guardrails to address any community concerns, adding: “We stand ready to work with any of those cities again, if they so choose.”

While the contract has been terminated, Ring said public sentiment proves one thing: People want to feel safe in their neighborhoods.

“So, while the controversy was kind of loud in the social media sphere,” Semenov said. luck, “I’m not sure what percentage actually translated into population.”

“I think a lot of people are very concerned about safer neighborhoods and returning dogs with a company like Ring that maintains your privacy.”

This article has been updated to include comments from Ring and the City of Windsor.