Cloud Video Surveillance

Amazon (Ring & Rekognition)

Amazon owns Ring, whose doorbell cameras and Neighbors app built partnerships with thousands of police departments to request footage. Founder Jamie Siminoff returned in 2025 and steered Ring back toward law enforcement — relaunching police video requests through a partnership with Axon — and toward 'AI-first' features including facial recognition ('Familiar Faces') and a computer-vision 'Search Party.' Separately, Amazon Rekognition offers cloud facial recognition that police piloted — and that the ACLU showed falsely matched 28 members of Congress to mugshots.

◍ Seattle, WashingtonEst. 1994NASDAQ: AMZN

People & money behind it

Jeff Bezos→MacKenzie Scott→Andy Jassy→Keith B. Alexander→John Doerr→Tom Alberg→Nick Hanauer→Kleiner Perkins→

Agencies & customers

Local LE

Products (9)

Ring & Neighbors→Amazon Rekognition→Ring Familiar Faces→Ring Cameras & Video Doorbells→Neighbors by Ring→Ring Community Requests (Axon partnership)→AWS GovCloud (US)→AWS Top Secret / Secret Region (Intelligence Community Cloud)→AWS for Defense (JWCC / Warfighting Cloud)→

Abuses & incidents

Lawsuit

FTC: Ring spied on customers

2023

The FTC found Ring let employees and contractors watch customers' private videos and failed to secure them, resulting in a $5.8M settlement.

↳FTC Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers, Failed to Stop Hackers Taking Control of Users' Cameras — Federal Trade Commission, 2023 ↗

Investigation

2,000+ police footage partnerships

2021

Ring built partnerships with thousands of police and fire agencies to request residents' doorbell footage, turning private homes into a distributed surveillance network.

↳Ring Announces It Will No Longer Facilitate Police Requests for Footage from Users — EFF, 2024 ↗

Investigation

Falsely matched 28 members of Congress

2018

The ACLU showed Amazon's Rekognition falsely matched 28 members of Congress to mugshots — disproportionately people of color — while Amazon marketed it to police.

↳Amazon's Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots — ACLU, 2018 ↗

Ban / Halt

Police-use moratorium

2020

Amid bias findings and protests, Amazon paused police use of Rekognition — a moratorium it later extended indefinitely.

↳Amazon pauses police use of Rekognition — Reuters, 2020