Amazon's Ring is running a spy ring from your home. Here's how to turn it off.

If there were one thing that stood out about the Super Bowl commercials this year — aside from companies desperately appealing to Millennials with '90s-themed nostalgia — it was the prevalence of artificial intelligence. Chief among them, Amazon showed off a new AI feature that taps into its broad Ring camera network to create a mass surveillance dragnet so effective that "Minority Report" would blush. Even worse, the feature is enabled by default, which means your Ring camera could be scanning your street right now.

Your neighborhood is under AI surveillance

We live in odd times when Amazon would willingly spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad, just to tell the world a secret that most companies would keep to themselves — that their Ring cameras are now essentially AI-powered mass surveillance tools.

Your cameras have been automatically opted in, and they are actively scanning your street.

The feature is called Search Party. In the 30-second ad, a little girl is given a puppy. After falling in love with him, the dog goes missing, only to be found after Ring cameras installed throughout the neighborhood scan the streets and identify the missing pet. It’s a heartwarming tale on the surface, positioning Search Party as a smart and helpful way to find a lost dog and bring him back home.

To Amazon’s credit, the feature was meant to be a benefit to users, boasting that more than one dog has been returned home per day since the feature launched. The broader implications, however, are that Search Party’s capabilities could easily be expanded to scan the faces of humans. It’s not unrealistic either, since Ring already does a version of this for designated family and friends with a feature called Familiar Faces. With humans as the target instead of animals, Ring’s camera network could create a surveillance state bolstered with facial recognition, ID matching, and a criminal database. It’s the stuff of dystopian nightmares.

Search Party is enabled by default on all Ring outdoor cameras and doorbells. That means your cameras have been automatically opted into the service without your consent, and they are actively scanning your street corner for lost pets right now.

Can the government spy on Americans with Search Party?

Amazon claims that privacy, security, and user control are critical pillars in Ring’s products and services. If this were the case, Search Party would have been optional from the start, but I digress.

For what it’s worth, Ring will only hand over users’ personal information and the recorded footage saved to user accounts when served a legal warrant or for urgent law enforcement requests involving imminent danger. So the government probably won’t exploit Search Party for surveillance purposes now or in the future, at least not in most cases.

Either way, it’s still creepy that Ring could one day build and keep a record of every person who walks by one of their devices, thanks to AI disguised as a helpful pet finder.

RELATED: How to stop Microsoft from letting the government see everything on your computer

Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

How to disable Search Party on Ring cameras

Although Search Party comes pre-enabled on your devices, you have the power to turn it off. Follow these quick steps to rid yourself of Amazon’s intrusive AI spyware for good:

• Open the Ring app on your smartphone.
• Tap the hamburger menu in the top left corner.
• From the menu, choose “Control Center.”
• Under “Search Party,” tap on the “Search for Lost Pets” option, and disable it.

Screenshots credit Global Success Narratives

Your neighbors need to know about Search Party too

Keep in mind that disabling Search Party on your cameras is only half the battle. Every other Ring camera, including the ones in your neighborhood, is surveilling the block, monitoring you and your neighbors when you walk by. If you really want to kick Amazon’s AI out of your community, you’ll need to spread the word.

Tell your neighbors about the feature and how to disable it. Bring it up in town hall meetings. Let your neighbors know you do not want Search Party anywhere near your home. Only then will you be free from Amazon’s prying eyes.