Leaked email shows Ring CEO using Charlie Kirk’s assassination to justify expansion of ‘Search Party’ feature: Report
Home security company Ring plans to expand its “Search Party” feature despite critics branding it “dystopian.”
Ring, which specialises in creating doorbells with live security camera feeds, showcased the Search Party tool in an ad that aired during Super Bowl LX.
The feature currently allows users to track a lost dog’s movements. It uses AI to analyse Ring doorbell camera feeds in the local area to locate missing canines.
However, a leaked email, sent by Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff and obtained by 404 Media, suggests that the company is planning to use the feature to “zero out crime in neighborhoods.”
In the same message, Siminoff referenced the hunt for right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin as proof of the value of Ring’s technology to law enforcement.
“This is by far the most innovation that we have launched in the history of Ring. And it is not only the quantity, but quality,” Siminoff reportedly wrote in a leaked email. “I believe that the foundation we created with Search Party, first for finding dogs, will end up becoming one of the most important pieces of tech and innovation to truly unlock the impact of our mission.
“You can now see a future where we are able to zero out crime in neighborhoods,” Siminoff continued. “So many things to do to get there but for the first time ever we have the chance to fully complete what we started.”
Exactly how the firm plans to “zero out crime” remains unknown, as does the significance of “complete what we started.”
The internet backlash against the Search Party technology, unveiled last fall, has been immense.
One social media user even compared the tool to Skynet, a fictional Artificial Intelligence machine from the Terminator franchise, hellbent on world domination.
“Ring Camera introducing Search Party. AI video surveillance of your neighborhood. Constantly, everyday, always watching,” the user wrote. “You can’t not hide or escape. Skynet.”
Another X user described the technology as being part of a “dystopian promise” of the future.
Despite the backlash, Siminoff seemed optimistic about the technology’s uses in the leaked email.
“It is exciting to be back to Day 1, we are going to have to work hard and leverage everything we can, especially AI,” he wrote.
