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You don't need a Ring camera or doorbell to use the new feature
A new way to keep your neighbourhood safe is launching in the UK. Amazon-owned doorbell camera maker Ring is preparing to launch its Neighbours community feature in the Ring app, offering a new way for you to stay safe and connected with everyone in your area.
It's designed to work like a digital community noticeboard built right into the app for free. You can use it to flag safety concerns, share local news, report suspicious activity, or even help find a missing pet.
Dave Ward, Ring's managing director of international, told The Guardian: "We used to have the village noticeboard, but as things have changed we no longer have that local connection.
"Instead what you see in WhatsApp or other services is quite a broad-stroked flood of information, the bins being left out, that sort of thing. It's a big group that ends up getting muted.
“We’re trying to tailor this down to just the things that really matter to your immediate community, and then it becomes super useful.”
When you sign up on the app, you pick your address and choose a radius — anywhere from 0.1 to five miles — so you only see posts relevant to your area.
From there, you can share anonymised updates about safety worries, bad weather, road closures, or anything else that matters locally. If you do own a Ring camera, you can also attach footage from your doorbell to back up what you're reporting.
Amazon says every post has to fit into set categories and follow strict guidelines that ban illegal content, discriminatory language, and speculation. A combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and human moderators is also meant to check posts both before and after they go live.
Mr Ward said the platform actively guides you toward constructive posting, steering you away from unhelpful or inflammatory content — something that's meant to set itself apart from other group chat platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook.
A noteworthy feature includes a Search Party for Dogs, which helps reunite lost pooches with their owners using the power of neighbourhood cameras.
For example, if your dog goes missing, you can post a photo and description through the app. Neighbours who have Ring cameras with a cloud subscription can then opt in to help, and their outdoor cameras will start scanning for dogs matching the description.
If a potential match is spotted, the camera owner gets a notification and can decide whether to share the footage with you.
Over 25,000 dogs ended up in local authority care in a single year, and only around 38% were actually reunited with their families, according to the Dogs Trust Stray Dog Survey.
In the US, Ring's Neighbours service includes a feature called Community Requests, which lets police forces ask local Ring camera owners to hand over footage related to specific incidents.
However, this system is opt-in, so you can choose whether to share on a case-by-case basis, and police aren't told who declines.
There's also Neighbours Verified, which allows official bodies like fire services to broadcast safety messages directly to local communities.
Neither feature will be available when Neighbours launches in the UK. Ring says it's developing both for a possible rollout later this year at the earliest.
Amazon acquired Ring back in 2018 in a deal valued at more than $1 billion, and scrutiny around its surveillance capabilities has only grown since.
To address some of those privacy worries, Ring introduced a new default encryption system called TAKE — which stands for "throw away the key encryption."
This gives Ring's systems time-limited keys to access camera recordings, and after 24 hours, that access is automatically cut off. If anyone — including law enforcement — wants to view footage after that window closes, you have to actively grant permission through your Ring app.
Amazon has also said you can control exactly how much or how little they share on Neighbours. Names and addresses are never displayed, and you can flag posts that you feel breach privacy.
