SEATTLE — Charles Sigwalt, a Virginia resident, filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon in Seattle federal court on Monday. The lawsuit alleges that Ring’s “Familiar Faces” feature collected his facial recognition data without his consent while he was visiting friends’ and family members’ homes equipped with Ring doorbell cameras.
The complaint claims that Ring’s technology scans the faces of individuals passing by its cameras and creates a “face print” to re-identify them. Sigwalt seeks to represent a nationwide class of all people in the U.S. whose facial recognition data was collected, retained, or used by the Familiar Faces feature. The lawsuit states that “millions of Americans passed by a Ring security camera and unknowingly had their facial recognition information collected.”
According to the filing, damages in the case “far exceed $5,000,000.00” when accounting for statutory and actual damages tied to the loss of biometric data value. The lawsuit also proposes a subclass specifically for Virginia residents whose biometric data was collected through the feature.
Ring introduced the Familiar Faces feature in September 2025. The feature allows users to receive alerts identifying frequent visitors—such as “John at Front Door”—instead of generic notifications like “Person at Front Door.” Users can build a personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces for identification purposes. Ring states that users must opt in to enable the feature, and that face data is encrypted, never shared, and that unidentified faces are automatically deleted after 30 days.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized the Familiar Faces feature, warning that biometric data could be used for mass surveillance or exposed in a data breach. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts has also opposed the technology, stating it could record biometric data of individuals who never consented to facial scanning.
Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 for $1 billion. In 2023, the company settled a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission for $5.8 million over allegations that Ring employees and contractors improperly accessed customers’ private videos. The FTC had alleged that Ring failed to protect customer security, leading to incidents where hackers threatened or sexually propositioned Ring owners. Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit.