Ring Doorbells have a sinister new feature that you’ve got to opt out of
Ring has sparked privacy fears with its new Super Bowl advertisement, which features an AI-powered dog detector.
Ring Doorbells are home security systems that act a bit like a digital peephole – allowing you to snoop on who’s standing outside your door.
Now, Ring is hoping you not only use it to check if the delivery driver stole your parcel or not, but to see if there’s a missing canine outside your door.
The ad, ‘Search Party from Ring | Be A Hero In Your Neighborhood’, opens with a young girl receiving a puppy named Milo.
But Milo became one of the 10 million pets that go missing annually in the US, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff says.
While the girl is out nailing ‘Missing Dog’ posters to telephone poles, her parents post a photo of Milo to the Ring Neighbors App.
Siminoff explains: ”One post of a dog’s photo in the Ring app starts outdoor cameras looking for a match.
‘Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs.’
The ad shows dozens of people in the local area have video doorbells, each on the lookout for missing canines.
When a missing dog report is posted, nearby outdoor cameras begin scanning for matches, Ring says on its help webpage.
If one finds a similar dog, the owner can review the footage alongside the missing dog’s photo. Ring and non-Ring camera owners can take part.
Users can alert the pet owners if they decide a filmed dog is theirs. Ring says there’s no obligation to do so for privacy purposes.
The Super Bowl ad, which aired yesterday, ended with Milo running into the arms of his family.
‘Technology introduced for safety gradually expands into broader surveillance’
Viewers, however, weren’t sure how to feel about this.
Online streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker said on X: ‘How much longer till the always-on remote AI capabilities of your Ring camera isn’t “optional”.’
Another user added: ‘Ring offering to turn your neighbourhood into an AI-fuelled surveillance state under the guise of “helping you find your lost dog” is CRAZY.’
On YouTube, a user commented: ‘This is like the commercial they show at the beginning of a dystopian sci-fi film to quickly show people how bad things have gotten.’
Tech privacy experts were equally unnerved by the ad. F. Mario Trujillo, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Metro: ‘With minor tweaks, Ring’s tool to search for lost dogs could be used by law enforcement to track people.
‘Homeowners don’t have to participate and privacy regulators can investigate.’
Marijus Briedis, the chief technology officer at NordVPN, warned Metro that AI-powered security tech is increasingly leaning into so-called ‘function creep’.
‘Technology introduced for safety or convenience gradually expands into broader surveillance,’ Briedis explained.
‘What starts as identifying that you have a delivery arriving, or alerting homeowners to movement, can quickly evolve into tracking individuals across neighbourhoods, profiling habits, or sharing data with third parties for purposes users never intended.’
Ring said that since the launch of the tool in November in the US, Search Party for Dogs has helped reunite one dog with its owner each day.
Users were emailed about the upcoming feature, which said the function is enabled by default, saying: ‘You can always turn off Search Party.’
The smart security company has insisted the function does not scan human faces.
Mimi Swain, Ring’s chief commercial officer, told Forbes ahead of the ad airing that Ring not covering the technical specs was a deliberate choice.
Swain said: ‘The goal wasn’t to overwhelm viewers with product details. It was to show Ring’s bigger purpose.’
Amazon, which owns Ring, said in a blog post: ‘Search Party’s expansion reflects a meaningful step forward in Ring’s mission to make neighbourhoods safer – including for all our four-legged family members.’
This story was originally published on February 9, 2026.
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