Amazon has begun rolling out an AI-powered facial-recognition feature for its Ring video doorbells in the United States, enabling devices to identify visitors by name after users label faces in the Ring app.
The feature, called “Familiar Faces,” was announced earlier this year and is now being released to Ring device owners nationwide.
How the Familiar Faces Feature Works
Amazon said the feature allows users to create a catalog of up to 50 faces. These may include family members, friends, neighbors, delivery drivers, household staff, and other frequent visitors.
Once a face is labeled in the Ring app, the camera can recognize the individual as they approach. Instead of a generic alert such as “a person is at your door,” users will receive personalized notifications like “Mom at Front Door.”
Faces can be labeled from the Event History section of the app or from the new Familiar Faces library. Once named, the label will appear in notifications, the app’s timeline, and Event History. Users can edit names, merge duplicate faces, or delete entries at any time.
The feature is not enabled by default. Users must manually turn it on through the app’s settings.
Data Handling and Storage Policies
Amazon said face data used by the feature is encrypted and not shared with third parties. Unnamed faces are automatically deleted after 30 days, according to the company.
In response to questions from consumer groups, Amazon said biometric data is processed in the cloud and claimed it is not used to train AI models. The company also said it would not be able, from a technical standpoint, to identify all locations where a specific person was detected, even if law enforcement requested that information.
Privacy Criticism and Past Security Issues
The rollout has drawn criticism from consumer protection organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and from US Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who has called for the feature to be abandoned.
Critics point to Amazon’s history of partnerships with law enforcement. Ring previously allowed police and fire departments to request video directly from users through the Neighbors app. More recently, Amazon partnered with Flock, which provides AI-powered surveillance cameras used by police, federal agencies, and immigration authorities.
Ring has also faced past security enforcement. In 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission fined Ring $5.8m after finding that employees and contractors had broad access to customer videos for years. The Neighbors app previously exposed users’ home addresses and precise locations, and Ring account passwords have circulated on criminal forums in past breaches.
Regulatory Limits and Geographic Restrictions
Privacy laws prevent Amazon from launching the Familiar Faces feature in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, according to the EFF. These jurisdictions have biometric privacy regulations that restrict the collection and processing of facial data.
EFF staff attorney F. Mario Trujillo said that routine activities such as walking past a home should not require surrendering personal privacy and called on state regulators to investigate how the feature complies with biometric privacy laws.
Industry and Consumer Response
Amazon said Ring owners can use Familiar Faces to manage alerts on a per-person basis, including disabling notifications tied to their own movements in and out of the home.
Despite the company’s assurances, consumer protection groups continue to raise concerns about expanded surveillance, the use of cloud-based biometric processing, and the potential for future data access by third parties.
Featured image credits: eQ Homes
For more stories like it, click the +Follow button at the top of this page to follow us.