Others accuse the Neighbors app, and similar apps like Citizen, of creating an ersatz surveillance state and stoking fears at a time when crime rates are at historic lows. The company’s motion activated doorbells may capture innocent activities of people who live nearby, like someone walking down a public street. Earlier this week, the digital rights group Fight for the Future launched a new campaign asking citizens to demand their local police departments end their relationship with the company. Ring has sought to tightly control how police officials portray their partnerships with the company, as both Gizmodo and Motherboard have reported. It sends cops scripted talking points to publish on social media and canned outreach messages to post on Neighbors. The company also asks police departments to sign confidential agreements, which often include a clause promising not to issue public statements about Ring before they are first vetted by Ring itself. “The relationship between the company and the police departments doesn’t necessarily seem to be completely about public safety,” says Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “They seem to be enlisting law enforcement in a sort of sales role. ”When police departments go even slightly off script, Ring pushes back. In April, the Bloomfield Police Department in New Jersey announced it was partnering with Ring and published a press release on social media that, according to documents obtained from another public records request, appeared to be almost entirely written by the company. The only parts that weren’t taken from Ring directly were quotes attributed to Bloomfield’s mayor, Michael Venezia, and its public safety director, Samuel DeMaio.