Ring Privacy and Security Settings You Should Check Right Now

Search Party is a new Ring feature seen in the company’s Super Bowl commercial. The company is promoting it for use in two cases.

The first is to help find lost dogs that are reported missing in Neighbors. The second is to spot wildfires and inform first responders. It’s turned on by default and—when prompted by a new report of a wildfire or missing dog—automatically scans video footage from every available Ring camera in your neighborhood, without asking your permission each time. (Civil society and privacy groups worry that the feature could be used to track people, too.) While these Search Party features are turned on by default, the Ring app will ask you whether you want to share relevant photos and videos with your neighbors, and you can say no.

You can turn off Search Party features by opening the Search Party page in Control Center. Tap on “Search for Lost Pets” or “Natural Hazards (Fire Watch)” and toggle it off, either completely or for individual cameras tied to your account.

One of many features of Neighbors by Ring, Community Requests lets the company’s partner law enforcement agencies ask Ring users to share video that might be relevant to a criminal investigation.

“It’s up to you whether you want to share video footage with the police,” says Justin Brookman, director of technology policy at Consumer Reports. “Just keep in mind you won’t have any control over how long they retain the data or what they do with it.”

Police departments can also view any video you publicly share in the Neighbors by Ring neighborhood-watch-style network, a feature built into the Ring app and also available as a standalone app. But Ring states that local police can’t view live video feeds or control Ring devices. You can find out more about how Ring works with law enforcement on Ring’s FAQ page.

If you don’t want to see Community Requests at all, you can turn them off. Open the Neighbors section of the Ring app and go to the Neighbors feed > top-right gear icon > Neighborhood Settings > Feed Settings. From there, scroll down to Community Requests under Post Types, deselect the checkbox next to Community Requests, and click the Apply button.

If you don’t want to take part in the Neighbors by Ring network at all, you can also disable it. To do so, go to Control Center > Neighbors toggle button > “Yes, disable now.” This will prevent you from creating posts and receiving them from neighbors and the police.

To find out whether your local police agency is part of Neighbors, you can view a map (shown below) of Ring’s 2,600-plus partner police departments, 620-plus partner fire departments, and 120 partner local government agencies from the Public Safety page in Control Center.

Ring automatically encrypts your videos, but for a higher level of security, the company offers end-to-end encryption for all but four Ring cameras: Video Doorbell (1st Gen), Video Doorbell Wired, Stick Up Cam (1st Gen), and Spotlight Cam (1st Gen). End-to-end encryption ensures that only personal smartphones and tablets that you enroll in the feature can access your videos.

Hackers won’t be able to view your videos (without physically getting your devices), and neither will Ring or Amazon. Law enforcement also won’t be able to access your footage from Ring, even with a legal order, though it could acquire it by serving you with a legal order instead.

The only downside is that end-to-end encryption (E2EE) disables a number of other Ring features, including shared accounts, person detection, facial recognition, 24/7 recording, preroll recording, and AI video search. The full list of affected features, as well as detailed instructions for enabling E2EE, are detailed on Ring’s end-to-end encryption support page.

Given all of the functionality that you lose by enabling E2EE, the trade-offs might not be worth it to you. And there are other options on the market that provide smart features along with E2EE (more on that below).

With Amazon Sidewalk, the company uses select Ring cameras (and Amazon Echo smart speakers) to form a continuous wireless network so that Sidewalk-compatible devices are never out of reach of an internet connection.

That may sound pretty cool: Amazon points to the example of how Sidewalk could help find a lost pet wearing a tracker across town through the network. But you might not want Amazon and other people’s devices to tap into the internet connection you pay for, even if the usage is negligible. You might even be automatically signed up for Amazon Sidewalk with your Ring camera. But it’s easy to opt out.

To turn it off: Go to Control Center > Sidewalk toggle button > Disable Sidewalk button. For more information on Amazon Sidewalk, see our rundown on the pros and cons of the Sidewalk network.

Ring lets you store your video recordings and photo snapshots in the cloud through its Ring Protect subscription service (starting at $5 per month for one camera or $10 per month for unlimited cameras). By default, once you subscribe, your videos are stored for 180 days, and your snapshots are stored for 14 days, but you can opt for shorter times if you want to reduce the chance they’ll ever be accessed and used by Ring, the police, or even a hacker.

For videos, the company allows you to shorten the storage time to 120 days, 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, 21 days, 14 days, seven days, three days, or one day. For photo snapshots, you can shorten the storage time to seven days, three days, or one day. Tap Video and Snapshot Storage Time > Edit next to your camera(s) > Number of days > Save.

This menu also includes controls for videos you share with others, listed under Shared Videos. The shared videos are divided into two groups: Active Cameras you’re currently using, and Past Cameras you no longer use. You can view the videos for each group by tapping the Manage button next to them. It’s a good idea to review them to see whether there are any videos you no longer want people to be able to view, and unshare them. This will prevent anyone who received the videos from being able to view them again.

A shared user account is one you create for family members and friends so they can access your Ring devices. These accounts are a much more secure alternative to handing out your own username and password. This setting lets you see and remove all of your shared users. It used to be in the Control Center, but it’s now on the Settings page, which you can access from the main menu at the top-left of the app.

To see the list of shared users, go to Settings > User Permissions. If you see people you don’t recognize or who shouldn’t have access to your devices, revoke their access by tapping their name, then tapping Delete under Delete User.

If the Delete button is greyed out, it means that user can control Ring cameras at multiple locations. To delete the shared user, you’ll need to first revoke their access to your home location by tapping on the location name listed under Access, and tapping the Remove button.

The Ring app provides additional settings that are very similar across many digital products and services. We recommend checking these settings periodically to make sure they haven’t changed.

Ring requires two-factor authentication (2FA) for all of its users, and it’s a good form of protection for all your online accounts. From the Account Verification page in the Control Center, you can change whether 2FA secondary codes are sent via text message or an authenticator app. It’s a good idea to make sure Ring is using the method you prefer and not sending the codes to a phone number or an app you no longer use.

An authorized client device is any smartphone, tablet, or computer that’s logged in to your Ring account, either in the app or via a web browser. If you see any devices on the list that you don’t recognize, or even old devices that you no longer use, revoke their access. You can revoke devices individually by tapping the red trash can icon next to them, or remove them all and start fresh by tapping the red Remove All Devices button. Keep in mind that if you go for the nuclear option, you’ll need to log back in to the Ring app on the devices you want to keep.

Linked accounts are for third-party smart-home devices and services that connect to Ring products, such as an Amazon Echo smart speaker or Samsung SmartThings smart home hub. This setting lets you view the third-party accounts that are linked to your Ring account, and if you don’t recognize or use them, revoke their access by tapping the red trash can icon.

In early 2020, researchers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that Ring was sharing user data with a number of third-party tracking services. In response, the company added the ability to opt out of third-party tracking (this is different from the third-party devices mentioned above) to Ring Control Center.

To opt out of that tracking, go to Control Center > Cookies and Third Party Service Providers > toggle off Third-Party Web and App Analytics Cookies, and Personalized Advertising. Each toggle button prompts you to confirm your choice; you can do so by tapping the blue Opt out button.

If you want complete control over the video footage your cameras capture, you’ll want to store it locally in your home. Many manufacturers now offer security cameras and video doorbells with local storage, and none of them have direct law enforcement partnerships like Ring. Here are a few cameras and doorbells that perform well in our ratings and offer local video storage.