Partnership between Amazon’s Ring and Flock crumbles after Super Bowl ad backlash, and it has everything to do with the surging anti-ICE sentiment

Ring, the Amazon-owned security giant, is officially terminating its planned partnership with police tech provider Flock Safety, the company announced, as reported by CNBC. That’s a huge shift, and while the Amazon subsidiary claims the issue was simply about resources, the decision comes amid surging pressure on tech firms to stop working with federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Ring stated the official reason for the sudden cancellation in a blog post. “Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” Ring wrote. “As a result, we have made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration.”

This announcement comes as tech companies face intense scrutiny regarding their involvement with federal law enforcement. We’ve seen this kind of internal pressure growing across Silicon Valley. Employees at companies like Salesforce and Google have been actively pushing their leadership, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, to cancel what they call “ICE opportunities” and divest from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

This strong anti-surveillance sentiment is definitely linked to Flock’s operations

Flock runs a massive network of automated license plate readers across the country, selling access to this data to thousands of law enforcement agencies. Reports indicate that both ICE and CBP have accessed Flock’s data as part of President Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown. Flock, for its part, has denied that it shares data with ICE or any “sub-agency” of the Department of Homeland Security.

The partnership, which was announced last October, would have given owners of Ring’s video doorbells the option to share footage with law enforcement agencies that use Flock’s software for “evidence collection and investigative work.” Ring spokesperson Emma Daniels confirmed the partnership was never active, stating that the companies never even announced a date for it to go live. Daniels clarified the situation, saying, “No videos were ever shared between these services.”

This breakup isn’t the only privacy controversy Ring has faced lately. The company recently ran an ad during the Super Bowl touting a new “Search Party” feature. This tool uses AI to scan footage from participating Ring cameras to help users locate lost pets. While the feature sounds heartwarming, privacy and civil liberties advocates quickly dubbed it a “surveillance nightmare.”

Ring has defended the tool, with spokesperson Emma Daniels insisting the feature was built “with strong privacy protections from the start.” She noted that users maintain total control, deciding on a case-by-case basis whether they want to share their videos with a pet owner initiating a search.