Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt filed a class action lawsuit in Seattle on June 2 alleging that Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras violated bystanders’ privacy through their Familiar Faces feature, which uses AI to recognize regular visitors. The suit claims that “millions of other Americans” have walked past Ring cameras and had their facial recognition data collected without their knowledge or consent. Ring requires its own users to opt in to the feature — but the complaint targets those who simply pass in front of Ring cameras on public sidewalks and have made no such choice. Amazon did not immediately respond; at the December 2025 launch, the company stated that face data is encrypted, never shared with third parties, and that images of unidentified faces are automatically deleted after 30 days.
Ring first announced Familiar Faces in September 2025, drawing immediate pushback from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), who demanded Amazon abandon the plan; the company launched regardless. The lawsuit lands on top of Ring’s already considerable privacy record: in 2023, Amazon paid a $5.8 million FTC fine over findings that employees and contractors had improperly accessed private video footage from women customers, with the FTC noting that every employee had full access to every customer’s video regardless of job necessity. Ring had also granted law enforcement the ability to request footage from users without a warrant before reversing course. Earlier in 2026, Ring canceled plans to partner with surveillance company Flock Safety — which has reportedly provided footage to ICE and other federal agencies — after a Super Bowl ad for “Search Party,” an AI feature that uses Ring footage to find lost pets, sparked a fresh wave of consumer backlash.