Amazon faces class action lawsuit over Ring facial recognition feature
Key takeaways
- Amazon was sued on Monday over alleged privacy violations from its Ring doorbell cameras.
- Ring announced the Familiar Faces feature last September and faced pushback from consumer protection organizations like the EFF, as well as Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).
- Familiar Faces lets Ring users identify people who regularly come to their home through AI facial recognition.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Amazon was sued on Monday over alleged privacy violations from its Ring doorbell cameras. The class action lawsuit, filed in Seattle by Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt, claims that Ring s Familiar Faces feature stores images of passersby without consent.
Ring announced the Familiar Faces feature last September and faced pushback from consumer protection organizations like the EFF, as well as Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). But the company moved forward with its plans to launch the feature in December.
Familiar Faces lets Ring users identify people who regularly come to their home through AI facial recognition. That way, if a regular guest, like a family member, mail carrier, or neighbor, comes to the door, the device will be able to recognize them and deliver more specific notifications like Dad is at the door, rather than a person is at the door. Ring users have to opt in to this feature, but privacy advocates noted that the people who walk past these Ring doorbells have not consented to these facial recognition scans. That same concern is at the center of this class action lawsuit.