Ring's New TAKE Encryption Throws Away Its Own Copy of Your Camera Keys

Amazon's Ring announced on August 26 that it is rolling out TAKE (Throw Away the Key Encryption), a new default encryption system that deletes Amazon's copy of camera keys within 24 hours, with the phased rollout starting in September 2026 and becoming the worldwide default once complete. The system, built on the Messaging Layer Security standard, rotates keys every five minutes and uses AWS Nitro Enclaves to enable AI features like Smart Alerts and video search without retaining permanent access. The move follows a 2023 FTC settlement in which Ring paid $5.8 million over allegations of employee access to customer videos, and the company also shut down its police Request for Assistance tool in January 2024.

Ring is rolling out TAKE, a new default encryption system. It deletes Amazon's copy of your camera keys within 24 hours - and it's built for one awkward reality: people want AI camera features, but they don't want Amazon holding the keys forever. Amazon's Ring announced the change on August 26. It's replacing its default video encryption with TAKE, short for Throw Away the Key Encryption. According to TechCrunch, the phased rollout starts in September 2026 and TAKE will become the default encryption standard worldwide once it reaches all customers. The pitch is plain enough: Ring wants you to trust it with front-door footage again, without switching off the cloud features that made the camera useful. Here's how it works. Ring says TAKE creates unique encryption keys that rotate every five minutes. A temporary copy sits inside an AWS Nitro Enclave, a cloud environment designed to isolate sensitive processing, so Ring can run features such as Smart Alerts, video search and video descriptions. Then the copy is deleted within 24 hours. After that, Ring says only you and the people you've shared access with retain the keys needed to unlock the video. The company didn't invent the whole cryptographic base from scratch. Amazon's whitepaper says TAKE is built on Messaging Layer Security, an open standard from the Internet Engineering Task Force. That detail matters because a privacy system built only on a company's own black-box promises asks too much of the customer. You still have to trust Ring's implementation, but at least the foundation is a standard security researchers can understand and test. Full end-to-end encryption remains available. It just isn't the default, and for most Ring users that has always been the catch. Ring announced video end-to-end encryption in 2020 and rolled it out more broadly in 2021, but the setting disables some of the cloud processing people expect from a modern camera. Turn on true E2EE and video search stops working. So do AI descriptions and some shared-user features. That's the bargain. Amazon Quietly Raised Prices on Echo, Kindle, Fire TV and Eero Devices https://startupfortune.com/amazon-quietly-raised-prices-on-echo-kindle-fire-tv-and-eero-devices/ Amazon quietly raised prices overnight on Echo, Kindle, Fire TV and eero devices, with the Echo Dot jumping 60% to $79.99. According to Fortune, an Amazon spokeswoman confirmed the industry is facing steep memory and storage cost increases tied to AI demand, while Ring products were left untouched. - amazon device price increases memory chip shortage https://startupfortune.com/amazon-quietly-raised-prices-on-echo-kindle-fire-tv-and-eero-devices/ - why did amazon raise echo and kindle prices https://startupfortune.com/amazon-quietly-raised-prices-on-echo-kindle-fire-tv-and-eero-devices/ Why Ring Had To Move This isn't a goodwill gesture. It's a response to a genuinely ugly record. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission accused Ring of giving employees and hundreds of Ukraine-based contractors broad access to customers' private videos, including footage from bedrooms and bathrooms. The FTC said staff could view, download and share videos, and that employees improperly watched female customers on at least two occasions. One case lasted for months before Ring stopped it. Ring settled the FTC case for $5.8 million, agreed to delete unlawfully obtained videos and accepted new privacy and security requirements. The FTC later sent more than $5.6 million in refunds to 117,044 Ring customers in April 2024. Those are not background details. They are the reason any new Ring privacy claim has to clear a higher bar than a product blog post. Ring also spent years as a convenient route for police departments seeking doorbell footage without first going to court. That's a separate scandal. In January 2024, the company shut down its Request for Assistance tool, which had let police and fire departments ask users for clips inside the Neighbors app. TechCrunch reported at the time that the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the move a step in the right direction, while still pushing Ring to enable end-to-end encryption by default and questioning emergency handovers without a warrant or user consent. TAKE follows that same retreat, but with code instead of policy. Ring is no longer just saying fewer people should get access to your footage: it is trying to shorten the period when Ring itself can unlock it, from a standing key to a short-lived one. That's progress. It is not the same as never having the key at all. The AI Tradeoff Here's the thing: AI camera features need access to video. A system that tells you whether a package, a person or a vehicle crossed the frame has to process the image somewhere. Ring's answer is to process it in the cloud during a short window, then throw away the key. If the design works as described, older encrypted clips should become much harder for Ring employees, Amazon engineers or law enforcement requests to reach through the company. That still leaves a real question for you as the customer. Do you want the strongest privacy setting, or do you want the camera to describe what's happening on your porch? Ring is betting most people will choose the working feature set, especially if the privacy cost is smaller than it used to be. Frankly, that is probably right. Most users never changed the encryption setting when E2EE was available as an opt-in choice. The next test won't come from Ring's announcement. It will come from security researchers, privacy groups and the first legal requests after TAKE is in place. That's the real test. If the five-minute key rotation and 24-hour deletion window hold up, other smart-home companies will copy the model. Apple, Google, Amazon - you name it. Every company selling AI around cameras faces the same tension. Amazon faces a privacy test over Ring’s facial recognition feature https://startupfortune.com/amazon-faces-a-privacy-test-over-rings-facial-recognition-feature/ Amazon’s Ring is facing a proposed class action over its Familiar Faces facial recognition feature. The case raises a larger question for consumer AI: whether a device owner’s opt-in is enough when bystanders are the ones being scanned. - Ring facial recognition lawsuit privacy consent https://startupfortune.com/amazon-faces-a-privacy-test-over-rings-facial-recognition-feature/ - facial recognition data collection without permission https://startupfortune.com/amazon-faces-a-privacy-test-over-rings-facial-recognition-feature/ Ring has made the right move. It's reduced how long it can unlock your video. The harder part is proving, over time, that the old access culture is gone too. Also read: Russian Hackers Tricked Cursor's AI Agent Into Breaching Six Companies https://startupfortune.com/russian-hackers-tricked-cursors-ai-agent-into-breaching-six-companies/ • Meta Closes a Second Loophole That Let Ray-Ban Glasses Record in Secret https://startupfortune.com/meta-closes-a-second-loophole-that-let-ray-ban-glasses-record-in-secret/ • Anthropic Says Claude Is Showing Early Signs of Self-Improvement https://startupfortune.com/anthropic-says-claude-is-showing-early-signs-of-self-improvement/