Ring gets buzzed by class action for collecting visitors' faces without consent

personal tech

The latest in a series of raised eyebrows over Familiar Faces and other AI ventures

Perhaps you stopped by a friend's house and rang their Ring doorbell. Or maybe you walked past a neighbor's front door on your way somewhere else. According to a new class action lawsuit, Ring's Familiar Faces feature may have captured your face and generated facial-recognition data from it without your knowledge. A Virginia man is now suing Amazon and its home security subsidiary, alleging violations of state laws.

Charles Sigwalt claims that Ring's Familiar Faces, an AI-powered facial-recognition feature that identifies frequent visitors and creates profiles for them, collects biometric data from people without their knowledge or consent.

Launched in December 2025 in the US, and April 2026 in the UK, Familiar Faces allows customers to create up to 50 profiles belonging to frequent visitors, allowing their doorbell to tell them who exactly is at their door, rather than just telling them that someone, anyone, pressed the buzzer.

In Ring’s product marketing, under a “Built with Privacy in Mind” heading, it clearly states that Familiar Faces is an opt-in feature. It is not enabled by default.

However, Sigwalt argues in his lawsuit that the functionality subjects anyone within the doorbell’s field of view to facial recognition tech, potentially having their facial-recognition information stored on Amazon’s servers without their consent.

This includes everyone from family members to postal workers, all the way to passersby who don’t even approach the Ring user’s property.

Sigwalt, who is personally aggrieved at being subjected to the company’s facial recognition himself, claimed that to ensure Familiar Faces runs properly, Ring would take a “faceprint” of each subject, similar to that of a fingerprint.

The complaint alleges that Familiar Faces converts facial images into mathematical templates, or "faceprints," that can later be used to recognize the same person. Those profiles and related facial-recognition data are stored in Amazon's cloud rather than on the device itself.

Citing an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) blog, Sigwalt argued that biometric identifiers collected for facial recognition could be repurposed for broader surveillance. The complaint does not allege that Ring has used Familiar Faces for mass surveillance, and Ring has said it would not be technically capable of identifying every camera that had detected a particular individual.

The complaint [PDF] goes on to allege that even though face prints are only stored for 30 days in the case of unrecognized faces, and 180 days for those with saved profiles, the data retention extends beyond these timeframes, since saved profiles return to Ring accounts after unsubscribing from the service.

Sigwalt added that “Ring clearly has the ability to follow biometric privacy laws … but chooses not to,” referring to the company’s confirmation that it won’t operate Familiar Faces in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon.

According to the complaint, those laws are the reason Ring does not make Familiar Faces available in those jurisdictions. Illinois and Texas impose consent requirements for certain biometric data collection, while Portland restricts the use of facial-recognition technology in public accommodations.

In addition to alleging violations of several Virginia laws related to consumer protection, computer crimes, and privacy, Sigwalt argues that Ring's conduct runs afoul of standards outlined by the Federal Trade Commission.

He cited a 2023 policy statement outlining possible violations in cases where a company engages in “surreptitious and unexpected collection or use of biometric information,” and others.

The lawsuit seeks to stop Ring from using facial recognition in its current form, award damages to class members, require the Amazon subsidiary to transfer profits into a constructive trust, and cover the plaintiffs' legal fees.

Amazon did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

The company previously sought to ease concerns about Familiar Faces in October 2025, before its US launch, by publicly responding to a series of questions put to it by the EFF. 

Spokesperson Emma Daniels stated that it does not use the data collected for the feature to train any AI models or algorithms. 

She added that Ring would not be technically capable of responding to a law enforcement request if an agency demanded it to identify all the cameras by which a given individual had been detected.

The EFF likened Familiar Faces to Search Party, a similar AI-powered feature launched to help locate lost pets, which has also been met with concerns about data privacy. ®