Amazon is facing a class action lawsuit over its Ring doorbell cameras’ facial recognition capabilities. The suit was filed in Seattle on June 2, 2026, by Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt, who claims that Ring’s Familiar Faces feature collects facial recognition data from passersby without their knowledge or consent.
Familiar Faces, launched by Ring in December 2025 after being announced the previous September, uses AI to identify people who regularly visit a user’s home. When a recognized individual approaches, the device delivers personalized alerts — such as “Dad is at the door” — instead of a generic motion notification. Ring users must opt in to the feature, but the lawsuit argues that the people walking past these cameras have no say in whether their faces are scanned. According to the complaint, “Millions of other Americans passed by a Ring security camera and unknowingly had their facial recognition information collected.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When the feature launched, the company said face data is encrypted, never shared, and that unidentified faces are automatically deleted after 30 days.
The feature drew criticism before launch from consumer advocacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), though Ring moved forward regardless.
This lawsuit adds to a pattern of privacy concerns surrounding Ring. In 2023, Amazon settled with the FTC and paid a $5.8 million fine after allegations that employees and contractors improperly accessed private videos from women customers, with the FTC noting that every employee had full access to every customer video regardless of need. Ring has also previously allowed police to request user footage without a warrant.
More recently, Ring cancelled a planned partnership with video surveillance company Flock Safety — which has reportedly provided footage to ICE and other federal agencies — days after facing backlash over a Super Bowl ad introducing an AI-powered lost-pet search feature that used Ring footage.
Source: TechCrunch