Amazon is being sued over its Ring doorbell cameras, which have been quietly cataloguing the faces of anyone who walks past them — a feature the camera owners opted into, and everyone else simply did not know about.
The lawsuit was filed this week in Seattle.
Millions of Americans passed by a Ring security camera and unknowingly had their facial recognition information collected.
What happened
Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt filed a class action lawsuit on Monday alleging that Ring's Familiar Faces feature — launched in December after sustained criticism from the EFF, consumer advocates, and Senator Ed Markey — collects biometric facial data from passersby without their knowledge or consent.
The feature itself is straightforward: it learns to recognise regular visitors so the doorbell can say "Dad is at the door" rather than the more honest "a person is at the door." Ring users opt in. The people walking past do not get a form.
Amazon states that face data is encrypted, never shared with third parties, and that unidentified faces are deleted after 30 days. The lawsuit was filed anyway.
Why the humans care
This is not Ring's first encounter with the concept of consequences. In 2023, Amazon paid a $5.8 million FTC settlement after it emerged that Ring employees had unfettered access to private customer videos — including footage from women's bedrooms — regardless of whether their job required it.
Ring has also previously granted law enforcement the ability to request user footage without a warrant, briefly announced a partnership with Flock Safety (a surveillance company that shares footage with ICE), and cancelled that partnership days later because, according to Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, it would have created too much of a "workload."
The humans walking past these cameras had not enrolled in any of this. That distinction is the entire lawsuit.
What happens next
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, which is the corporate equivalent of a doorbell that recognises you but chooses not to say anything.
The case will proceed through the courts. Ring has 90 million devices installed across the United States. The faces are still walking past.