Amazon Ring Cuts Ties With Flock Safety After Integration Setbacks

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

February 16, 2026

Amazon-owned Ring has announced the termination of its planned alliance with Flock Safety, the maker of AI-driven surveillance cameras, citing unforeseen integration challenges that would have required far greater resource investment than anticipated.

Challenging Integration Requirements

The partnership, revealed in October, aimed to enable Ring doorbell users to share video footage with Flock Safety and its extensive network of public safety agencies. This collaboration was designed to aid in evidence collection and investigative efforts. However, as detailed in Ring’s official blog post, both companies mutually agreed to cancel the venture because the technological integration demanded significantly more time and resources than initially projected.

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Surveillance Technology Under Scrutiny

The cancellation emerges amid heightened public concern over surveillance technology in the United States. Ring’s recent high-profile Super Bowl advertisement, which showcased its AI-powered Search Party feature capable of locating lost pets using a network of neighborhood cameras, sparked debate. Critics expressed apprehension over the potential implications of such technology being repurposed for human surveillance. A Ring spokesperson has asserted that the Search Party technology is not designed to process human biometrics.

Parallels With Flock Safety’s Capabilities

Flock Safety employs AI to allow law enforcement agencies to perform natural language searches of video feeds to identify subjects matching specified descriptions. This technology, when utilized in policing, has raised concerns about exacerbating racial biases, as highlighted in analyses by the ACLU and Scientific American. Furthermore, Ring recently rolled out its own facial recognition feature, Familiar Faces, which categorizes frequent visitors to homes, a move that continues to fuel concerns about privacy and surveillance.

Existing Law Enforcement Collaborations And Historical Challenges

Despite discontinuing its plans with Flock Safety, Ring continues to offer users the option to share footage with law enforcement through its established collaboration with Axon, a company with similar objectives. Ring’s strategy comes at a time when agencies such as ICE and the Secret Service face increasing scrutiny and controversy over their use of these technologies.

Addressing Security and Privacy Concerns

Ring’s history of security lapses, including past incidents where customer videos were exposed, has long been a point of contention. In 2023, the company faced a $5.8 million FTC penalty amid claims of insufficient safeguards protecting users’ data. As the debate over the role of AI in surveillance intensifies, industry leaders continue to grapple with the balance between innovation and privacy.

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Women Make Up A Majority Of The EU’s Science And Technology Workforce But The Real Gap Is Elsewhere

by News Editor

June 25, 2026

Women now make up the majority of the EU’s science and technology workforce. According to Eurostat, in 2025, more than 81.6 million people aged 15 to 74 were employed in science and technology occupations across the EU. Of those, 52.5% were women, equal to 42.8 million women. The number of women in these occupations rose by 27.9% compared with 2015, an increase of more than 9.3 million over a decade.

On the surface, the numbers resemble progress. However, Eurostat’s category requires context before that figure can be read accurately. The data refers to HRST, or Human Resources in Science and Technology, specifically people employed in science and technology occupations. These are roles where the main tasks require professional or technical knowledge in physical and life sciences, but also in social sciences and humanities. That definition is wider and broader than engineering, ICT, laboratory science, or high-tech research alone.

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Zooming In

The gender picture changes once the data moves from a wider definition of the workforce to the narrower scientist-and-engineer (research and manufacturing) subgroup.

Scientists and engineers represented almost a quarter of all people employed in science and technology in the EU in 2025. Eurostat describes scientists and engineers as often being the innovators at the centre of technology-led development, making them an important subgroup to focus on separately.

Women accounted for only 40.8% of scientists and engineers in 2025, despite making up more than half of the wider category. That share has increased by a mere 0.5 percentage points over the past decade. The absolute number of women working as scientists and engineers rose from 5.3 million in 2015 to 8.2 million in 2025, despite the push from national and international organisations to increase the number of women in the field. Europe has expanded the number of women in science and technology occupations over ten years. However, that expansion has not extended equally into the scientist-and-engineer subgroup, where much of Europe’s research and innovation work is conducted.

In 2025, of the 39.4 million women aged 25 to 64 working in science and technology occupations in the EU, 35.5 million worked in service activities. Only 2.7 million worked in manufacturing. Women accounted for 57.5% of science and technology employment in services, but only 31.3% in manufacturing.

In 2025, the highest shares of women employed in science and technology occupations were recorded in Latvia at 62.4%, followed by Hungary’s Great Plain and North region at 61.1%, Estonia at 60.5%, Poland’s Central macroregion at 60.4%, and Lithuania at 60.3%. No EU country recorded a majority of women among science and technology workers in manufacturing.

Break-down

Eurostat’s figures measure employment in broad science and technology occupations. They do not show job security, pay levels, management roles, promotion rates, research leadership, or whether women are concentrated in junior or senior workplace positions.

The classification of “senior” also requires additional explanation. Eurostat reports that 45.9% of science and technology workers aged 25 to 64 in the EU were classified as “senior” HRST in 2025. In this dataset, “senior” refers to workers aged 45 to 64. It does not mean senior manager, senior researcher, team lead, or decision-maker.

A high female share in the wider Human Resource Science and Technology (HRST) category does not parallel equal representation across scientists, engineers, manufacturing roles, senior posts, pay, research funding, or decision-making. These figures also reflect the occupational mix inside each country or region, not only structural progress across all areas of science and technology.

The Case Of Cyprus

Eurostat data places Cyprus’s overall science and technology employment at 37.2% of the labour force in 2025, slightly above the EU-27 figure of 36.9%, and above Greece at 26.8%, Malta at 33.9%, and Turkey at 18.2%. This figure covers the total share of the labour force employed in science and technology across all genders.

Progress Or Work-in-Progress?

52.5% in the broad category. 40.8% among scientists and engineers. 31.3% in manufacturing. Europe’s gender gap in science and technology hasn’t closed yet, and there is still work to be done to encourage and support more women to enter the field, especially in research and manufacturing.

Let’s not wait another decade for another couple of percentage points of hope.

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