What happens to the data that smart home cameras collect? Can law enforcement access this information – even when users aren’t aware officers may be viewing their footage? Two recent events have put these concerns in the spotlight.

A Super Bowl ad by the doorbell-camera company Ring and the FBI’s pursuit of the kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, have resurfaced longstanding concerns about surveillance against a backdrop of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The fear is that home cameras’ video feeds could become yet another part of the government’s mass surveillance apparatus.

Ring’s Super Bowl ad appeared intended to inspire hope: a neighborhood harnessing the power of technology to find a lost dog: a distraught girl misses her pet, Milo, who has gone missing. Gone are the times of putting up “missing” posters. Simply posting Milo’s photo through the Ring app automatically alerts a host of nearby cameras to use AI to look for a match, the ad says. A neighbor then arrives on their porch with Milo, safe and sound. As they reunite, feel-good music plays. But the reference to the AI-powered feature Search Party, meant to mimic the activity of a real one, quickly triggered comparisons with a dystopian Black Mirror episode. Viewers wondered: if the company could quickly access hundreds of Ring cameras in a neighborhood to find a dog, what’s stopping it from targeting a person in the same way?

In Guthrie’s case, the FBI released a video Tuesday showing a masked person at her doorstep. But the footage appears to have been retrieved from a Google Nest camera that officials previously said was disconnected and lacking an active monthly subscription for premium features. Without a subscription, users cannot typically store footage. The publication of the footage from Guthrie’s home indicated that law enforcement could still access “residual data located in backend systems”, in the words of FBI director Kash Patel; cybersecurity experts have said this may be because doorbell cameras often have back-ups stored in a cloud. It’s currently unclear whether law enforcement used a warrant.

“There’s a very distinct and marked difference between what you have access to – in terms of whether you’re paying for it or not – and what the company has access to,” said Chris Gilliard, a data privacy expert who has researched how wearables and smart doorbells are contributing to mass surveillance.

Ring, owned by Amazon, and Nest say they comply with law enforcement requests for data, including footage, when it’s legally required and in instances where there’s a threat to someone’s life. Ring also says that federal law enforcement doesn’t have direct access to the data from the doorbell camera, telling Wirecutter in a statement that “Ring has no partnership with ICE, does not give ICE videos, feeds, or back-end access, and does not share video with them”. Ring has also said that the feature advertised as being able to find dogs can’t currently detect human biometrics. Nest has said in a transparency report that the company would not instantly hand over data to a federal agency with a search warrant. “We’d analyze the request to be sure the warrant wasn’t overly broad, then we’d make sure the information they requested was within the scope of the warrant,” the company stated.

There’s been a swift backlash, as people have become more aware of surveillance concerns tied to smart home devices. Many people bought these devices thinking they would do little more than protect their delivery packages. Lawmakers from across the aisle condemned Ring’s Super Bowl ad, with the US senator Ed Markey writing in an open letter on Wednesday that “it’s not hard to imagine the ways that Amazon – or law enforcement – could abuse this feature”. TikTok influencers called on people to “smash” their Ring doorbells, and Redditors shared tips on trying to get refunds on old Ring devices from Amazon. Graphics circulating on social media stated: “Your ring camera is an ICE agent.”

Ring appears to be feeling the heat. On Thursday, Amazon announced that Ring had cancelled its partnership with Flock Safety, which runs a network of automated license plate readers across the US. Flock says it does not give ICE or the Department of Homeland Security direct access to its systems, but news reports have documented an ongoing loophole: cases in which local law enforcement has used Flock’s tool in aiding federal immigration authorities.

Ring said in a blog post that the integration with Flock would “require significantly more time and resources than anticipated”. The company also stated that no customer videos had ever been sent to Flock, since the integration never launched, stressing a commitment to making neighborhoods safer.

Data-privacy advocates are not convinced by Ring’s commitment to community safety, though. “Ring is just trying to protect its bottom line,” said Jeramie D Scott, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s surveillance oversight program. Without additional federal protections, Scott worries Ring will continue to expand its surveillance capabilities despite the recent backtracking.

This isn’t the first time Ring has faced criticism over data protection. “Ring has a history of playing it pretty loose with people’s privacy rights,” said Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission charged the company with “compromising its customers’ privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers’ private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections”. This, in turn, allowed hackers to “take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos”. Ring agreed to pay $5.8m in a settlement with the FTC.

Ring still has many partnerships with police, and with the return of its founder, Jamie Siminoff, who is now CEO, the company appears to be doubling down on its original emphasis on fighting crime. Siminoff said last year that his cameras can almost “zero-out crime”, though experts like Gilliard are skeptical. After Siminoff’s return, the company partnered with body-camera maker Axon to restart a tool that allows police to request footage through an online portal.

“These companies – their typical strategy is to consistently push the envelope in small ways to acclimate us to more invasive uses of these things,” Gilliard said.