Won't you see my neighbor? (feat. Matt Guariglia)

Won't you see my neighbor? (feat. Matt Guariglia)

From Lock and Code by Malwarebytes

March 8, 2026 · 32 min · Season 7 · Episode 5

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of Ring's new AI feature and the privacy concerns it raises.

On February 8, during the Super Bowl in the United States, countless owners of one of the most popular smart products today got a bit of a wakeup call: Their Ring doorbells could be used to see a whole lot more than they knew. In a commercial that was broadcast to one of most reliably enormous audiences in the country, Amazon, which owns the company Ring, promoted a new feature for its smart doorbells called “Search Party.” By scouring the footage of individual Ring cameras across a specific region, “Search Party” can implement AI-powered image recognition technology to find, as the commercial portrayed it, a lost dog. But immediately after the commercial aired, people began wondering what  else  their Ring cameras could be used to find. As US Senator Ed Markey  wrote on social media : “Ring’s Super Bowl ad exposed a scary truth: the technology in its doorbell cameras could be used to hunt down a lost pet…or a person. Amazon must discontinue its dystopian monitoring features.” These “dystopian monitoring features” aren’t entirely new, but that’s not to say that most Ring owners knew what they were allowing when they originally bought their devices. Bought by Amazon…

People in this episode

Guest: Matt Guariglia

Topics covered

  • smart doorbells
  • privacy concerns
  • AI technology
  • Ring cameras
  • surveillance
  • consumer awareness

Keywords

  • Ring doorbells
  • Amazon
  • Search Party
  • privacy
  • surveillance
  • AI
  • smart technology
  • Ed Markey

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Amazon, Ring

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