Amazon is facing a class action lawsuit over its Ring doorbell camera's facial recognition capabilities, which the suit claims scans faces without consent.
The lawsuit, filed in Seattle by Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt, alleges that Ring's Familiar Faces feature collects and stores facial images of passersby — mail carriers, neighbors, delivery people — without their knowledge or consent.
Ring's Familiar Faces feature allows users to opt in to have the doorbell's AI recognize people who regularly visit their home. The device learns to identify specific visitors — "Dad is at the door" instead of just "A person is at the door." Those other people walking past these cameras, however, have no awareness they are being scanned.
Ring announced Familiar Faces in September and faced immediate criticism from privacy groups including the EFF and Senator Ed Markey. The company launched it anyway in December.
"Millions of other Americans passed by a Ring security camera and unknowingly had their facial recognition information collected," the lawsuit states.
This is not Amazon's first privacy dispute. In 2023, the company paid the FTC $5.8 million after employees and contractors improperly accessed private videos from customers. Ring has also shared footage with law enforcement without warrants. The company recently canceled plans with surveillance company Flock Safety after facing backlash over footage going to ICE.
Amazon states the face data is encrypted and unidentified faces are automatically deleted after 30 days. The lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of millions of Americans.
