Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Ars today.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote in November Ring’s Famiar Faces will scan “many people who don’t agree to a face scan, including friends and family, political pundits, postal workers, delivery drivers, cookie sellers, or even some people walking by on the sidewalk.” The EFF said Amazon “attempts to impose some of the consent requirements on individual camera owners themselves” with messages reminding customers to comply with applicable laws.
“However, Amazon — as a company that collects, processes and stores this biometric data — may have its own consent obligations under multiple laws,” the EFF said, calling on regulators to “investigate, protect people’s privacy, and test the strength of their laws.”
Senator calls on Amazon to end Familiar Faces
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called on Amazon to end the Familiar Faces feature. Markey sent to Amazon letter In October 2025, Familiar Faces asked how it worked, and in February 2026, it summarized Amazon’s responses. letter It echoed his call to finish Familiar Faces.
Markey said that in Amazon’s response to the first letter, “Ring’s privacy protections apply only to owners of devices that can ‘connect’ to the Familiar Faces feature, while providing no comparable consent mechanism for individuals unknowingly exposed to facial recognition, and members of the public have no right to control their facial scans and biometrics.”
According to Markey’s follow-up letter, Amazon also said that “individuals seeking to have their biometric data deleted must request deletion from each individual Ring device owner,” forcing people to make separate deletion requests for each home they visit,” and that “the number of law enforcement agencies Neighborhood Public Safety Service It has increased from 2161 in 2022 to 2723 today.
Amazon launched its AI-powered Search Party feature last year useful for finding lost petsled to Reaction after the Super Bowl ad. Later Amazon Ended contract with Flock Safety that Ring would send customer videos to Flock, ie used by police departments.
The Ring posed privacy risks before its Familiar Faces and Lookup Party features were launched. FTC in 2023 sued It accuses Ring of invading users’ privacy by “allowing thousands of employees and contractors to view video recordings of customers’ private spaces.” Amazon admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer restitution, deletion of certain types of data, and privacy and security controls.
