Amazon Ring sued over facial recognition feature as privacy fight moves to federal court

Amazon and its Ring home security subsidiary have been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the company of collecting and retaining facial recognition data from visitors, delivery workers, neighbors, and passersby without their consent through Ring’s new “Familiar Faces” feature.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, marks the latest escalation in a long-running privacy fight over Ring’s transformation from a consumer doorbell camera into a broad residential surveillance network.

The plaintiff, Charles Sigwalt, a Virginia resident, is seeking at least $5 million in damages on behalf of a proposed nationwide class.

The lawsuit alleges that Ring violated state and common law privacy protections by deploying facial recognition technology in a way that captures people who never purchased a Ring device, never agreed to Ring’s terms of service, and never consented to biometric scanning.

Sigwalt claims that he visited homes of friends and family where Ring cameras using Familiar Faces were active and that his facial recognition data was collected without notice or compensation.

At the center of the case is Familiar Faces, a Ring feature that allows users to identify recurring visitors and receive personalized alerts.

But instead of a generic notification that a person is at the front door, the feature can identify someone by name once the Ring user has labeled that person. Ring says the feature is optional and not turned on by default.

Ring’s support materials say profiles and facial recognition information are encrypted and stored in the cloud, not on the device, that unnamed profiles are automatically removed after 30 days without recognition, and that all profiles and facial recognition information are deleted after 180 days of no recognition.

The lawsuit argues that those controls do not solve the central consent problem.

The feature is not available to Ring customers in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon because of biometric privacy laws.

The complaint says Familiar Faces must scan faces that appear in the camera’s field of view before it can determine whether a person is familiar or unfamiliar.

The suit alleges that Ring converts those faces into faceprints, stores them as mathematical templates, and uses them to re-identify individuals when they appear again.

The complaint claims this creates a biometric database not only of Ring users’ friends and family, but also of people who merely walk onto a porch, approach a business entrance, deliver a package, or pass near a camera.

Sigwalt’s complaint seeks certification of a nationwide class covering all people in the U.S. whose facial recognition data was allegedly collected, retained, or used by Familiar Faces during the applicable statutory period.

It also proposes a Virginia subclass for residents of the Commonwealth whose facial recognition data was allegedly collected through the feature.

The complaint says the class could include thousands or millions of people and brings claims under Virginia consumer protection law, Virginia’s appropriation statute, Virginia’s Computer Crimes Act, intrusion upon seclusion, negligence, and unjust enrichment.

The filing leans heavily on the argument that biometric data is different from ordinary personal information because it cannot easily be changed once compromised.

The complaint also claims that Ring has no adequate policy for collecting facial recognition data from minors who may pass in front of a camera with Familiar Faces enabled.

The lawsuit follows months of warnings from privacy advocates and Sen. Edward Markey, who urged Amazon last year to abandon the feature before its rollout.

Markey warned that even if Ring customers must opt in, that choice does not extend to non-users captured by a camera. He said the system forces non-consenting bystanders into a biometric database without their knowledge or consent.

Markey asked Amazon to explain how it would obtain informed consent from passersby, delivery workers, and others whose faces might be scanned, how long biometric data would be retained, and whether law enforcement agencies could access live streams or stored biometric information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) made a similar argument before the lawsuit was filed, warning that when Familiar Faces is activated, Ring must scan every person who approaches the camera to determine whether there is a match with saved faces.

EFF said that could include postal workers, canvassers, children, neighbors, visitors, and people walking by. The group also noted that many biometric privacy laws require affirmative consent before a company collects or processes a faceprint.

Ring has presented Familiar Faces as a convenience and security feature, not a surveillance tool. Amazon’s UK announcement for the feature said it is off by default, allows users to create a personal directory of up to 50 profiles, and includes prompts telling users to obtain explicit consent from visitors where required by law.

The company also says face data is encrypted and private to the user’s account.

But the complaint argues that placing responsibility on Ring users to notify visitors is inadequate because people captured by the system may never know that facial recognition was running.

It also points to the features’ absence in Illinois, Texas, and Portland as evidence that Ring knows stricter biometric laws require stronger protections. The lawsuit says Ring “clearly has the ability to follow biometric privacy laws” but does not provide the same level of protection elsewhere.

The case also lands against a broader history of concern over Ring’s privacy practices and law enforcement ties.

The legal question now is whether the court accepts the plaintiff’s theory that non-users captured by Familiar Faces have enforceable privacy, property, or consumer protection claims against Amazon and Ring.

Article Topics

Amazon  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  facial recognition  |  lawsuits  |  Ring doorbells