US rollout brings AI face tagging to Amazon Ring
Ring owners can label regular visitors to receive personalised alerts.
Amazon has begun rolling out a new facial recognition feature for its Ring doorbells, allowing devices to identify frequent visitors and send personalised alerts instead of generic motion notifications.
The feature, called Familiar Faces, enables users to create a catalogue of up to 50 individuals, such as family members, friends, neighbours or delivery drivers, by labelling faces directly within the Ring app.
Amazon says the rollout is now under way in the United States, where Ring owners can opt in to the feature, which is disabled by default and designed to reduce unwanted or repetitive alerts.
The company claims facial data is encrypted, not shared externally and not used to train AI models, while unnamed faces are automatically deleted after 30 days, giving users ongoing control over stored information.
Privacy advocates and lawmakers remain concerned, however, citing Ring’s past security failures and law enforcement partnerships as evidence that convenience-driven surveillance tools can introduce long-term risks to personal privacy.
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