• by Tanya Gazdik , Yesterday

Amazon’s Ring has terminated its partnership with police tech provider Flock Safety.

“The termination comes after weeks of backlash over the partnership and Ring’s Super Bowl commercial last Sunday, which advertised a feature for finding lost pets that sparked concerns on social media about unwanted surveillance,” according to CNN Business. "The smart camera company previously planned to integrate Flock, which makes cameras for reading license plates, into its Community Requests feature that allows law enforcement to request video footage from users for investigations.”

The 30-second commercial showed a lost dog being traced from porch to porch through interconnected devices relying on what the company called “Search Party." When a user initiates the feature, it activates a network of participating Ring cameras, which scan footage for images resembling the missing dog.

Critics warned that that commercial felt “more invasive than heartwarming,” according to The New York Times. “On social media, some users expressed unease that the new feature presented as a technological advance appeared capable of enabling the authorities to tap into thousands of cameras that could track people’s everyday movements.”

One person called it “the quiet rollout of a national surveillance regime,” while another joked “‘surveillance state’ but make it adorable.” One video on TikTok with more than 3 million views called the commercial “terrifying.”

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., wrote an open letter to Amazon on Wednesday about the Super Bowl ad, claiming the company “consistently failed to prioritize public privacy with its Ring doorbells” and asking it to turn off its facial recognition technology, according to NBC News. 

Ring’s decision to cancel its partnership with Flock also comes as tech companies face growing pressure to reexamine their work with federal agencies, according to CNBC. 

Salesforce employees are pressing CEO Marc Benioff to cancel “ICE opportunities.”  More than 900 Google employees also asked their company to divest itself from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.