The police next door: What Ring and Flock say about our safety – The Cougar

Amazon-owned doorbell company, Ring, and security technology company Flock Safety announced a working partnership in late 2025 to integrate a community request feature that would allow law enforcement to request video footage from Ring customers who also use the Neighbor’s app. 

Although Ring camera users would be able to opt in and opt out of these features, there is an undeniable cynicism in framing mass data extraction as voluntary “community participation,” especially when the power dynamic between residents and law enforcement is so stark.

By treating surveillance as a civic obligation, we see who bears the brunt of policing, who is trusted to report it and how these patterns institutionalize bias, particularly against Black, brown and immigrant communities.

Vigilante surveillance 

“Ring emphasized that the integration ‘simply streamlines’ how local police seek community help, but privacy researchers counter that it blurs the boundary between voluntary cooperation and crowd-sourced surveillance,” said Anthony Kimery, a biometric technology journalist.

By embedding law-enforcement requests within a privatized, community-facing app, Ring and Flock collapse the distinction between neighborly vigilance and state surveillance. This is especially a concern for communities that are disproportionately facing overpolicing. The app’s option to opt out of police surveillance seems hollow, as for black and brown communities, abstention does not dismantle their ability to be surveilled. 

As the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement increasingly relies on third-party surveillance and data brokers, the integration would allow immigration efforts to scale up without any accountability. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Amazon’s deal also highlights the efforts of Flock and its competitor Axon (which already had a deal with Ring) to become police departments’ centralized ‘operating system’.” 

The significance of the phrase “operating system” is that it enables not just data collection but the integration and cross-referencing across jurisdictions and agencies. In this case, data precedes legal justification rather than the reverse, and safeguards such as warrants and proper court orders are swept behind an app’s terms of service.

First prejudice, then evidence

In a similar light, the Neighbor’s app functions less as a tool for communication and more as an infrastructure of radicalized suspicion. Posts and footage collected on the app are shaped by implicit bias; this means surveillance power is assumed long before police make a request. 

Once that biased data enters an integrated law-enforcement ecosystem, it gains institutional legitimacy because it shapes where a search effectively begins. From there, footage and reports that originally started as private prejudice are reframed as objective evidence. There is no neutral standpoint when submitting this type of footage, and the app simply being privatized does not insinuate that it’s apolitical. 

Not to mention that the individuals shared through this app have no notice that their data could be transmitted to law enforcement, which also means they aren’t allowed to contest its accuracy or context.

Safety at what cost

In the context of recent ICE escalations, the lack of notice or correction in vigilante surveillance is particularly dangerous because indirect leads through third-party data could lead to life-altering consequences. Due process is highly overlooked in the case of immigration, which is why we often see arbitrary detention. 

In final remarks, the integration creates a system where implicit bias and prejudice fester, eating at the legitimacy of marginalized communities. This feature positions minorities as inherently “suspicious”, exploiting fears that majority communities profit from too well. 

When you police the vulnerable and shield those in power,  the illusion of democracy crumbles. Now that the undocumented immigrant is detained, and the innocent Black man is criminalized, who will be left to blame? Neighborhood? Ring and Flock? Or will it be the very political surveillance infrastructure promoted by law enforcement, packaged “for public safety” and integrated into systems that shape policy and even the next election? 

So I ask once more, safety at what cost?

opinion@thedailycougar.com