Published 2026-09-03 · Secur-Tek Security Blog
Ring Familiar Faces is a facial recognition feature that scans people who approach your camera and labels the ones it recognizes. To do that, it builds a faceprint of everyone who comes into view, including visitors, neighbors, and passersby who never agreed to it. The feature is opt-in, but it’s already blocked in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, and it’s now the subject of a June 2026 class-action lawsuit.
If you’re weighing whether to turn it on, or you’re uneasy that a neighbor already has, here’s a clear-eyed look at what the feature collects and how to think about biometric data at your own front door.
Ring launched Familiar Faces in December 2025 as part of a broader push into artificial intelligence. The pitch is convenience: your doorbell learns who your regulars are, so instead of “person detected,” you get “Mom is at the front door.”
To make that work, the camera has to do something specific. The Electronic Frontier Foundation described it bluntly in November 2025: the feature “will necessarily require its cameras to collect a faceprint from every person who comes into view” (EFF, 2025).
Read that again. Not just the people you tag. Everyone.
The feature is opt-in, so it’s off until you switch it on. But once it’s on, the people it scans never got a choice.
A regular camera records video. Familiar Faces records something more durable: biometric data.
A faceprint isn’t a photo. It’s a template of the measurements that make your face yours, and unlike a password, you can’t change it if it leaks. That permanence is the heart of the privacy concern.
Privacy lawyer Yelena Ambartsumian framed the stakes for Reader’s Digest: “It cannot be the expectation that once we leave our homes, we are consenting to sharing our biometric information” (Ambartsumian, Reader’s Digest). A stranger walking down a public sidewalk hasn’t agreed to have a permanent faceprint stored on a doorbell’s account, yet that’s exactly what happens when the camera catches them.
For a wider view of Ring’s privacy track record, including the 2023 FTC case, see our guide on whether Ring is spying on you.
Familiar Faces isn’t available everywhere, and the reasons tell you a lot.
Ring turned the feature off in those places rather than risk breaking those laws. When a company disables a “convenience” feature specifically in the jurisdictions with the strongest privacy protections, that’s a signal worth noticing. The feature works the same everywhere; the difference is whether the law lets it collect faceprints without consent.
North Carolina has no equivalent biometric law right now, which means the feature is allowed here. It also means you, not a statute, are the main line of defense for your visitors’ privacy.
In June 2026 a class-action lawsuit was filed over Familiar Faces and its biometric collection (Ring surveillance timeline). The core allegation follows the same thread as the EFF’s warning: that the feature captures faceprints of people who never consented, potentially in conflict with biometric privacy protections.
A lawsuit is an allegation, not a final ruling, and we won’t pretend to know how it ends. What it does confirm is that the “every person who comes into view” problem isn’t a fringe worry. It’s serious enough to draw federal-court litigation within months of launch.
Senator Ed Markey, who has pressed Amazon on Ring for years, connected the feature to a larger trend. He warned of “a giant step toward a dystopian future where Americans cannot leave their homes without being tracked and surveilled” (Markey, October 2025). You can find that language strong and still take the underlying point: a face-scanning camera on every porch changes what walking down a street means.
You don’t need a law degree to make a sound decision. A few honest questions get you most of the way.
Before turning on any face-recognition feature, ask:
Our honest take: for most Triangle homeowners, the convenience of a name-tagged doorbell doesn’t justify building a faceprint database of everyone who passes your house. The safety value is small, and the privacy cost lands mostly on people who never opted in.
There’s a simpler path. Cameras exist to watch your property, not to catalog identities.
At Secur-Tek, our video systems are built around a plain promise: your cameras stay private to you. Footage is customer-controlled and isn’t shared into police networks or third-party surveillance systems. We don’t push face-scanning features that quietly collect faceprints from your neighbors, and we don’t route your video through outside partners.
For the full local picture, our pillar guide covers home security in Raleigh, NC.
What does Ring Familiar Faces collect? It collects a faceprint, a permanent biometric template, of people who come into the camera’s view, then compares faces to identify the ones you’ve tagged. According to the EFF, the feature requires collecting a faceprint from every person who appears on camera (EFF, 2025).
Is Familiar Faces turned on by default? No. It’s opt-in, so it stays off until you enable it. But once you turn it on, everyone the camera sees gets scanned, including visitors and passersby who never consented.
Why can’t I use Familiar Faces in Illinois or Texas? Those states have strong biometric privacy laws that require consent before collecting faceprints, and Portland, Oregon restricts facial recognition in public-facing places. Ring disabled the feature there rather than risk violating those laws.
Is Familiar Faces legal in North Carolina? Yes. North Carolina currently has no biometric privacy law like Illinois BIPA, so the feature is allowed here. That also means the responsibility for your visitors’ privacy falls to you, not a state statute.
How do I get camera coverage without facial recognition? Choose a system with local, customer-controlled video and skip face-scanning features entirely. Good placement plus professional monitoring protects your home without building a faceprint database. Secur-Tek installs private cameras that stay under your control.
Before you flip on a feature that scans every face at your door, get a second opinion from people who install cameras for a living. Secur-Tek has protected Triangle homes since 1990, and our cameras stay private to you, with no faceprint database and no default sharing. Reliable UL-listed monitoring starts at $31.95 per month on a one-year term. Call (919) 387-1800 for a free Triangle security review and we’ll design coverage that protects your home without surveilling your neighbors.
Secur-Tek has protected Triangle homes since 1990 and is NC ASLB-licensed #SP.FA/LV.15309.
