18 ms·

Google’s Nest will provide data to police without a warrant

• bastawhiz 4y ago
  The article implies that Apple makes a doorbell. Do they? There are obviously Homekit doorbells, but this sentence implies otherwise: > Apple’s default setting for their doorbells is end-to-end encryption which means the company is unable to share user video at all.
  • EricE 4y ago
    Homekit doorbells use iCloud services and storage to host/serve the video; that's how Apple is involved even though they don't make the doorbells. I had a Nest at my previous house - decided to try the Wemo Homekit doorbell this time and I'm very pleased with it. I also use an Apple TV to drive all the content on my TV and the Homekit video notifications are amazing - instantaneous since the Apple TV is my local homekit hub. Way faster and far more reliable than the Nest doorbell ever was.
• mikece 4y ago
  "Google will allow law enforcement to access data from its Nest products — or theoretically any other data you store with Google — without a warrant." At this point, what doesn't Google know or is unable to accurately infer about any given person on the internet?
  • freediver 4y ago
    "Any" includes people who do not use Google and this is about 10% of online users. For them, a lot.
    • hedora 4y ago
      They still have facial recognition feeds, car feeds, and they purchase data from third-party consumer surveillance firms, including credit card purchase histories for non-Google users. You don't need to have a Google account to be tracked by AdWords, and there's no practical opt-out, other than staying logged in all the time, and then being tracked in other ways, and agreeing to all sorts of things in their (ever-changing) EULA. https://epic.org/documents/google-purchase-tracking/ https://epic.org/documents/google-purchase-tracking/ I'm sure they have other programs I haven't heard of.
      • freediver 4y ago
        Sure, but not using Google for search, and having an ad-blocking browser circumvents 99% of that threat.
  • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    At this point I cannot believe that anyone in Tech would have a Google account being that they should know better. Anyone could be made to look guilty when the authorities have enough data. Adding this for the people who keep downvoting this: https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-search-engine-google-ranks-cia-agents/281490/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-search-engin... "Google – one of the largest and most influential organizations in the modern world – is filled with ex-CIA agents. Studying employment websites and databases, MintPress has ascertained that the Silicon Valley giant has recently hired dozens of professionals from the Central Intelligence Agency in recent years." We are imprisoned by our addiction to convenience. I am in the middle of dealing with this now, switching my services where I can: dumb phone, linux laptop, swisscows, openstreetmap and an old Garmin GPS, and just being OK with uncertainty.
    • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      > old Garmin GPS I want this. Which model did you get and does it have up-to-date maps?
      • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        I have Garmin Drive 51. Yes, up to date maps. The only PITA is that you need windows or MacOS to update the system and the maps. I have a windows clone I put on my laptop every few months to accomplish this.
        • orangepurple 4y ago
          Just use Osmand on an old smartphone without a SIM. It's less worse than old Garmins and map updates are constant. Keep your system clock accurate for fast GPS lock.
          • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
            That is a great idea. I have a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS. I am an idiot for not thinking about just not putting my SIM in the phone.
• tantalor 4y ago
  > prevent someone from dying or from suffering serious physical harm These are exigent circumstances, which allow police to enter your home without a warrant. Extending that access to include video cameras seems reasonable. This is a "In Case of Emergency Break Glass" type of situation.
  • causi 4y ago
    If it's reasonable, then there shouldn't be a problem letting users turn it off.
  • bushbaba 4y ago
    How do you define this though. If someone say talks about XYZ politician. And the current governor feels if said XYZ person takes his position that it’d cause you personal harm. Can the current governor access your camera? If a police officer comes to your house without a warrant are they allowed to break in? If not they shouldn’t be given access to my camera feeds without my permission. The move by google here just re-affirmed that I made the right choice to not buy their products.
    • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      > If a police officer comes to your house without a warrant are they allowed to break in? Absolutely. If they hear gunshots or screams of “help! Help!” they will break the door down. I’m sure there are other triggers, too.
    • tantalor 4y ago
      > circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry (or other relevant prompt action) was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of the suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/exigent_circumstances https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/exigent_circumstances
      • DonnyV 4y ago
• 0xbadc0de5 4y ago
  Your daily reminder - if you don't host the data, someone else does. And their interests may or may not align with yours. And even if their interests align with yours today, that's no guarantee they will tomorrow. If you don't want audio, video, etc potentially shared with authorities, don't install cloud-enabled audio/video devices in your home.
  • MichaelCollins 4y ago
    "Cloud" means somebody else's computer. This is pithy, people here are sick of hearing it, but it's still true.
    • kornhole 4y ago
      It could be your private cloud therefore your computer. <5% of people probably have their own server. When that % changes significantly, we may need to stop saying this.
      • cruano 4y ago
        I guess 0.00001% is still < 5% Most people in tech still use @gmail addresses, do you think regular people bother to have their own private cloud for data storage ?
        • apocalyptic0n3 4y ago
          There's no way it's 5%, but Gmail addresses are a pretty poor indicator to use. Hosting your own email is one of the most difficult sysadmin tasks out there because keeping your server off the blocklists is not trivial; it's becoming more and more common for blocklists to just block entire CIDR ranges if a single IP in it gets blocked. I don't fault anyone for not going down that rabbit hole. Granted, they could be using Proton or some other alternative. But you still have the same inherent problem that someone else hosts/owns your email data.
          • 4y ago
• igetspam 4y ago
  For this reason, I just cancelled my nest doorbell order. I will gladly share access with the police if the situation warrants it but I don't accept that Google (or any company) should be able to make that decision without my consent.
  • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    But will you stop using all of Google's products? "Google will allow law enforcement to access data from its Nest products — or theoretically any other data you store with Google — without a warrant."
    • fooey 4y ago
      My understanding is under US law, any data you allow a 3rd party to "see" (aka "host") is considered public and they don't need a warrant Police don't need a warrant to get into your gmail or icloud or whatever else you host with 3rd parties
      • Grazester 4y ago
        and from my understanding this is incorrect.
        • sennight 4y ago
          and from my understanding of the ECPA, opened email on a third party server is legally considered abandoned property and enjoys all the protection that a smashed washing machine next to the highway receives. After 180 days all bets are off, regardless of the message being previously read or not.
      • xdennis 4y ago
        The data isn't public. It belongs to Google. They can ask for a warrant or just give away "your" data willy nilly.
    • digitalsushi 4y ago
• nebukadnet 4y ago
  Is anyone really surprised? I am not. Google has such a bad relationship to data privacy, they don't see the problem. Getting a warrant is so easy in the US right now, so there is very little reason to disrespect your customers privacy. They just don't see the problem.
• delecti 4y ago
  I'd find this much more acceptable if the system told people when their data was provided to police without a warrant. There's less potential for abuse if they're transparent about it.
  • ajross 4y ago
    Then you might want to read the linked article and not the headline, because CNET asked that question and... got an affirmative response, that Google will try to notify users whose data has been shared. Really almost all the top comments on this topic are people overreacting to the headline without realizing that the circumstances involved are emergencies and not just routine LE requests. Clickbait has ruined everything.
    • ocdtrekkie 4y ago
      They will try but can be legally prohibited from notifying you. A server you control and have the keys to can be compelled by the police, but not without your knowledge. Every supposed attempt to protect you is really just an attempt to justify an inherently unethical business model because it is profitable.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
      Try. They'll try to notify users? After their data has been shared with police. Well that's reassuring.
      • shadowgovt 4y ago
        Consider the circumstances. The context in which this data is shared is imminent danger to life. That includes kidnapping. If Google had a magic system for getting information to a kidnapping victim reliably, they wouldn't need to share user's private data with law enforcement, they could just share the information on where to reach the kidnap victim.
        • trasz 4y ago
• GiorgioG 4y ago
  So glad I ditched Gmail several months ago. I have a single Google Home device that was gifted to me by a friend, but I’m tempted to just unplug it at this point.
  • Jim_Heckler 4y ago
    What are you using now? been aching to get off gmail for a while, just haven't found the right alternative that supports IMAP.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
      Not the person you replied to, buy Fastmail does IMAP just fine.
    • derwiki 4y ago
      Fastmail, Protonmail
    • beej71 4y ago
      If you have a hosted website, check your provider. I have my domain at Dreamhost and they have IMAP included at my tier. I moved off Gmail to them about 9 months ago and it's be good. The worst part is that Dreamhost's spam filtering is abysmal compared to Google's. But my desktop is always on and I just keep Thunderbird running on it. TB's spam filtering is pretty good after training. I figure some of the dedicated email hosting services do a better job with spam.
    • GiorgioG 4y ago
      I switched to Fastmail and haven't looked back. Love it. IMAP is supported: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279921-IMAP-POP-and-SMTP https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000279921-IM...
• TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > Apple’s default setting for their doorbells is end-to-end encryption which means the company is unable to share user video at all Why won’t Google Nest and Amazon Ring do this? I have 6 Nest cameras throughout my home ( not the doorbell product)
  • cinntaile 4y ago
    Maybe it makes it harder to analyze and or sell that data to third parties.
    • nisegami 4y ago
      Do Amazon and Google sell data to 3rd parties? I always figured they wouldn't because it's literally the core of their value.
      • tomComb 4y ago
        They don’t. As you note, it wouldn’t make any sense for them to do so. It’s one of those perverse things that they are some of the few companies that actually don’t sell user data, and yet they’re the ones that are most frequently accused of it. I don’t think it helps us in keeping big tech companies to account when we spread false information about them.
      • egberts1 4y ago
        Yes. They do and often indirectly through 3rd parties. It is that obvious; It’s pervasive.
      • cmiles74 4y ago
        I'm not convinced that they are simply "giving" the data to law enforcement, it strikes me as much more likely that they are charging them.
  • EUROCARE 4y ago
    > which means the company is unable to share user video at all You said it yourself... How would you analyze the data if it's encrypted?
• lettergram 4y ago
  I can’t seem to find the direct link, but I remember when the state of Illinois created a program to give these out for free Recall at the time I mentioned to friends… I bet police get direct access and within 5 years, here we are lol Many utility companies still do https://themoneyninja.com/free-google-nest-thermostat/ https://themoneyninja.com/free-google-nest-thermostat/
  • tdub311 4y ago
    Do the thermostats have cameras in them?
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • elil17 4y ago
      They have occupancy sensors (not cameras), but those can still be used for surveillance.
      • entropie 4y ago
        Iam not sure. That means that it has to log every triggered sensor. I only have nest protect (stove heating) with occupancy sensor/pathlight and I really dont think it will record motion events nor submit them later (while connected). Could be wrong.
        • hedora 4y ago
          The occupancy sensors include wifi and bluetooth.
        • elil17 4y ago
          For nest thermostats, they advertise that their cloud based algorithm uses your phone location and occupancy sensor data to switch between “home” and “away” set points, so they have to be sending the sensor readings to the cloud. From there I can’t understand why they wouldn’t log those.
• nerdjon 4y ago
  Another article pointed out that most other cloud based offerings will still provide it if there is a warrant. But it seems like Apple is the only cloud based offering that cannot actually respond to these requests even if they get one? I just checked my HomeKit Secure Video camera and it seems like it isn't just the default setting, but the only setting. I see no way to tell it to not encrypt the data when storing it in iCloud (not sure why they would give that option at all TBH)
• sam0x17 4y ago
  Glad I'm using Euphy and not Nest
  • eschulz 4y ago
    I'm not sure they're much better. From the SHARING PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH THIRD PARTIES section of their privacy page: We may share your personal information in the instances described below Third parties as required to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, subpoena/court order, legal process or other government request, (ii) enforce our Terms of Use Agreement, including the investigation of potential violations thereof, (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third party claims or allegations, (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Eufy, its users or the public as required or permitted by law and (v) detect, prevent or otherwise address criminal (including fraud or stalking), security or technical issues. If we should ever file for bankruptcy or engage in a business transition such as a merger with another company, or if we purchase, sell, or reorganize all or part of our business or assets, we may disclose your information, including personally identifiable information, to prospective or actual purchasers in connection with one of these transactions. We may also share information with others in an aggregated and anonymous form that does not reasonably identify you directly as an individual.
    • trasz 4y ago
      At least it's not owned by American company, so doesn't technically _have_ to give the government institutions whatever they ask for. It's Chinese though, and that's not much better.
• zokier 4y ago
  I have difficulty understanding Googs (or Amazons etc) motivation to do this. What do they have to gain by being excessively cooperative with police force, especially on a local level? I can understand that having good rapport with feds might have benefits, but this doesn't sound like that
  • fredgrott 4y ago
    Simple, if they cooperate without being asked by warrant they might hope that their using the underlying data may be overlooked and not reviewed by say oh US Congress.
  • elil17 4y ago
    Just giving out the data with no due diligence saves billable hours from their lawyers.
  • AlexandrB 4y ago
    Amazon's motivation is quite clear - they want to reduce shrinkage by discouraging "porch pirates" from stealing Amazon deliveries. Not sure what Google's motivation is, but it might just come down to optics. Consider how Apple gets raked over the coals in the media by DAs when they refuse to unlock a suspects phone.
    • entropie 4y ago
      > Amazon's motivation is quite clear - they want to reduce shrinkage by discouraging "porch pirates" from stealing Amazon deliveries. You say they hand all the information to the police to prevent package stealing? Iam pretty sure thats not the reason at all, maybe a very very little part of it.
• JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  I am looking into SimpliSafe [1]. Anyone know if they store these data? [1] https://simplisafe.com/ https://simplisafe.com/
  • kornhole 4y ago
    I haven't looked into it, but someone else recommended https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate which integrates with Home Assistant.
  • flyingfences 4y ago
    I see them shilled in youtube sponsor deals often enough that I have to assume they're no good.
• cabirum 4y ago
  Any open-source projects to reliably stream and archive a video from a raspi?
  • dole 4y ago
    MotionEye?
  • hntcz 4y ago
    I did this for a university project. It streams to S3 (of Azure or Digital Ocean) encrypted, the client downloads it from there. It's very rough around the edges but if you are up to contribute it's a good base. https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-server https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-server https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-client https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-client The client is a React Native project, should run on Android or iOS.
  • simmons 4y ago
    For streaming, I have a few pi's (and cameras) running v4l2rtspserver, and it seems to work pretty well. It appears to be using the Broadcom hardware support for H.264 encoding, so it's pretty light on the CPU. I'm currently using Shinobi on a different host to receive and archive the RTSP streams. (Although I'm interested in checking out Frigate, which was mentioned elsewhere in this discussion.)
• nottorp 4y ago
  I'm sure Google's Machine Learning!(tm) will always make the right decision!
• saos 4y ago
  Wow. So Ring and Nest at it. What are some safe alternatives please?
  • nickthegreek 4y ago
    Logitech
    • Grazester 4y ago
      Logitech does not have a competing system. They offer Cameras which tie in with Apple Homekit so the alternative here is Apple HomeKit.
  • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Home Assistant
• silentsea90 4y ago
  Why isn't end to end encryption a standard now?
  • daveoc64 4y ago
    Because it's impractical in a lot of cases. Most consumers don't want to (or can't) deal with managing encryption keys, and aren't going to be keen on the idea that if you lose the key, you lose the data permanently.
  • pseudalopex 4y ago
    Pressure from governments reportedly.[1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
• yellow_lead 4y ago
  > “If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide information to a government agency — for example, in the case of bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention, and missing person cases,” reads Google’s TOS page on government requests for user information. “We still consider these requests in light of applicable laws and our policies.” What's the penalty for police lying to Google?
  • jaywalk 4y ago
    Why, they would never! And if they did, surely there was a good reason! We have to trust the police and Google!
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Do you really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?
• endisneigh 4y ago
  Use a camera that exposes an RTSP feed like Amcrest and buy Blue Iris. Backup whole disk with Backblaze. You’re done, and you’re welcome. If you’re really lazy at least use something like Apple HomeKit with supported cameras.
  • entropie 4y ago
    Any RTSP camera, frigate and homeassistant makes it pretty easy for tech related folks to have a state of the art surveillance system with every feature you could imagine.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• ArrayBoundCheck 4y ago
  I don't 'hate' this but how the heck would google detect something like this? Why do I feel like they're analyzing every word we say in our homes and building some kind of profile (for ad reasons). On second thought I do hate this
• LatteLazy 4y ago
  In fairness, there is good reason to release footage without a warrant for the reasons they list (including "school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention, and missing person cases"). I'd like a robust monitoring of how the information is used. But the law already recognises that you don't need a warrant in urgent, life threatening cases. And let's get real, getting a warrant is so easy these days as to be meaningless...
• judge2020 4y ago
  > “If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide information to a government agency — for example, in the case of bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention, and missing person cases,” reads Google’s TOS page on government requests for user information. “We still consider these requests in light of applicable laws and our policies.” So this is just an article pointing out something in the TOS. National security requests are common for any big company[0-2] since they'd rather play ball today, under their own terms, than resist and trigger new legislation that forces them to hand over information in any warrantless circumstance. 0: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html 1: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-security?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-... 2: https://transparency.fb.com/data/government-data-requests/ https://transparency.fb.com/data/government-data-requests/
  • freedomben 4y ago
    I think you're probably right in your analysis of their thought process, but I'd almost rather they force legislation's hand. Then there's a chance to hold elected officials accountable if they pass it, and there's a chance (IANAL) for a Supreme Court to throw it out as violation of the 4th amendment to the US Constitution. Even in the worst case (law passes, court upholds, and people re-elect the politicians) at least we have a definition somewhere on what is and what isn't ok. Today where it's ambiguous and "Company X may or may not" leaves a person to wonder.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • praxulus 4y ago
    Maybe this would just make me a bad service admin, but if I believed that I would be literally saving someone's life by sharing data from one of my users with law enforcement, I would be hard pressed to hold their privacy above another's life. Exactly what it takes to be reasonably convinced that I would be saving someone's life is of course not a simple question, but in at least some situations it seems like it would be worth the tradeoff.
• jesuspiece 4y ago
  Was never your data to begin with
• sys_64738 4y ago
  It should never be possible for a cloud provider to decrypt data from your devices. It should be encrypted by a public key you load on the device and only decrypted by your private key. The cloud prouder should be a dumb provider of the service and not get in the way. As soon as the cloud provider gives your decrypted data away to random people then that is a massive security hole.
• hackererror404 4y ago
  I would happily pay more for a company that will refuse to do this. This will be a strong market opportunity, at least for this buyer.
• ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Why do people still put a camera in their homes connected to the internet? That itself is the most bizarre behaviour.
  • Grazester 4y ago
    So I could see what the hell my nanny is up to with my children. I also don't want to have to spend 2 days setting up some hacked together system that I also have to spend time supporting when I simply don't have the time or will. That's why!
• egberts1 4y ago
  It is far, far better to set up your own personal cloud and run your own encrypted video capture system. You get both security AND privacy.
  • shadowgovt 4y ago
    And all it costs is the anxiety of wondering whether you succeeded or your bedroom is currently visible via shodan.io.
    • egberts1 4y ago
      That’s why cybersecurity job security is so secured against the leaking dikes of poorly designed computing protocols and software.
• lalopalota 4y ago
  Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency data requests" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842757
  • unixbane 4y ago
    It's funny how things like this surprise people, as if the legal system is a trustworthy blob on their architecture graph. One fundamental thing about it is that it's made up of different people and a huge amount of people, all with differing levels of competence (so not only is it untrustworthy, but it can't even consistently do whatever its goals are) as opposed to having any coherent goal or ideology.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• freedomben 4y ago
  > “A provider like Google may disclose information to law enforcement without a subpoena or a warrant ‘if the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of communications relating to the emergency,'” a Nest spokesperson tells CNET. I sympathize with this dilemma. It's a real-life version of the Trolley Problem[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
  • dafty4 4y ago
    But "to any person", e.g., a CIA asset in the field might be exposed by a gmail user, thus threatening her/his life, thus pre-emptively disclose the gmailer's info to law enforcement? Or imagine an idle threat is made off-hand in a private gmail, so pre-emptively disclose that threat to law enforcement? In the sci-fi Minority Report scenario, Google could use AI language models on all gmail to make a judgment call on "emergent danger of serious physical injury". If I plan to go bunjee jumping with an unreliable provider, Google scans my gmail and tells law enforcement?!?
    • freedomben 4y ago
      Yes good examples of how it can be abused. I'm certain the interpretation could be very liberal depending on the person making the decision. I know a person who was banned from twitter and was nearly fired because he dead-named somebody. The explanation was that it was literal violence against the person he dead-named, because so many trans people self harm if they don't feel that their identity is affirmed. The person who was banned says it was a force of habit because the person had only very recently went public with their new identity, but it did not stop the ban hammer. He almost lost his job as well because the tweet was posted in a public slack channel. HR left it up the person who was dead-named to make the decision, and they decided not to fire him. I could absolutely see a scenario like the above happening in gmail or some other Google product, and the decision-maker deciding that it was a threat to a person's life and should be disclosed. To some people that makes perfect sense. To others it does not. The point is simply that when we let humans make subjective decisions like that, we get all the downsides of human judgment.
• boplicity 4y ago
  Is there a decent "connected" camera that allows you to specify and use your own storage solution?
  • Pakdef 4y ago
    I used Reolinks in the past... Had them save locally on the camera's SD card and upload via FTP on the server on my local network... I also blocked their internet access
• hedora 4y ago
  Infuriatingly, as a non-well-connected victim of a boring (not going to be good PR) crime, I’ve found it is completely impossible to get the police to pull data for my own yard, warrant or no. In my experience, these capabilities are only used to protect the politically connected or for oppression. I’d be less skeptical if the program allowed any homeowner to pull any nest footage that included their property, and also allowed individuals to pull any footage that included them. Of course, that will never happen.
  • Thorrez 4y ago
    Are you saying police issued a warrant but a large tech company ignored the warrant?
    • spullara 4y ago
      He is saying that the police weren't interested investigating crimes.
      • chabons 4y ago
        OP is also raising the point that because only the police have the ability to retrieve Nest footage that pertains to them but is not owned by them, access to that data is gated by the police, who may not use that access evenly.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • Thorrez 4y ago
        Hmm, I think you're right. I was confused by the phrase "warrant or no", thinking it meant hedora had tried to get data both with and without a warrant and neither worked.
      • aliqot 4y ago
        Coming from a small-ish area, how does this happen? Do they say "no" and then offer you the door, or how does it normally go? I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify. I can't imagine a situation that would make it normal to just say no with a straight face.
• alangibson 4y ago
  For those of you old enough to answer: 30 years ago, did you foresee people spending significant amounts of money to install spy cameras in their homes and tracking devices in their pockets?
  • LatteLazy 4y ago
    Actually yes. 30 years ago I was 8 and the first home CCTV setups were just coming out. People loved that shit. But then Im a brit and we're all nosey neighbours...
    • sterlind 4y ago
      weren't the Brits using CCTV to catch kids skipping school a while back?
      • LatteLazy 4y ago
        One of the reasons we have school uniforms is to help police identify kids. That's why they're all weird colours with insignia etc. We have facial recognition stations too. :(
  • humanistbot 4y ago
    30 years ago (which was the early 1990s, eek!), analog CCTV was all the rage. Costs for cameras and VCR units plummeted, tapes became cheap commodities, and multiplexing video became trivial. With time-lapse and multiplexing, you only needed one VCR for four cameras, which could record for 24-48h on a single tape. It became cheap enough for businesses, hotels, apartment complexes, and the like to install them everywhere. Private CCTV became a staple of police procedural shows like Law and Order (1st season was 1990), which made people expect to be able to "check the tapes" after an alleged crime. Edit: This same issue was also a problem in the 1990s with private CCTV! If a police officer or detective tells a business owner that a crime has been committed and there might be evidence on the tape, the owner doesn't have to show the police the tape without a warrant. But they usually did, because it looks suspicious if they don't.
  • 4y ago
• qwertox 4y ago
  This just left me with my head shaking in disappointment after just reading the title. I'm done with all these devices, yet I know that my phone will still have this ability even if I've disabled the hotword functionality. Luckily for us, there are still the single board computers with cameras attached to them, which can do the same job without the could.
• pmayrgundter 4y ago
  Reminds me of the First Law of Robotics[1] "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." “A provider like Google may disclose information to law enforcement without a subpoena or a warrant ‘if the provider, in good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay of communications relating to the emergency,'” s/provider like Google/robot/ s/may disclose.*if the provider/may act to protect any person if the robot/ s/requires disclosure without delay of communications/requires action/ “A robot may act to protect any person if the robot believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires action without delay of communications relating to the emergency,'” [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• smrtinsert 4y ago
  The market seems to be wide open for a range of home devices that don't violate your privacy.
• 1137 4y ago
  If anyone wants to get rid of their devices because of this I'll take them :D
• wly_cdgr 4y ago
  Some may be uncomfortable with a company that has access to the most private data of so many people being ready and willing to cooperate with the police state, but voicing your support for this policy is actually a great way to demonstrate your Googleyness during the interview process!
• sandworm101 4y ago
  Incorrect title. Not the nest, Google here is allowing thier devce. Google is the one handing over data without a warrant.
• BurningFrog 4y ago
  11 times in a year across the US sounds quite reasonable though.
• johncessna 4y ago
  > “If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide information to a government agency — for example, in the case of bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention, and missing person cases,” reads Google’s TOS page on government requests for user information. “We still consider these requests in light of applicable laws and our policies.” This is in line with the reasons cops can do things that otherwise normally require a warrant. This is generally 'a good thing.' The issue, for me, is in the abuse and interpretation of these exemptions.
  • sterlind 4y ago
    Right, exactly. Google could have this and make it perfectly accountable. Just surface a user notification that X entity accessed your camera's data for Y time range, ideally with a reference to a case number. People will push back if the police abuse their power. They won't become as complacent, because they'll know when the cops are spying. But would they actually do it?
• SN76477 4y ago
  Police should not be able to ask without a warrant. down with surveillance capitalism!!
• NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  Wildly fascist. The warning sign was when AT&T got retroactive immunity for sharing customer data with the NSA. I wonder when Americans will decide to push the reset button.
• throw7 4y ago
  How easy would it be for google to, you know, program an interface that allows the police request to be shown to the owner and have them say yes or no to the video wanted?
• synicalx 4y ago
  Anyone operating under the assumption that their government doesn't already have unfettered, at-will access to all their data is deluding themselves. News like this should come as a surprise to no one, least of all the technically literate crowd here.
• jollybean 4y ago
  There were 7 instances in the entire year where this happened. Folks - while it's definitely disturbing from a legal perspective and needs to be addressed 'proportionality' is also something we have to consider. If this only happened '7 times' in a year, I'm doubtful this is arbitrary handing over of data. 'Real Life' is complicated, and sometimes processes don't line up as we would like. Neither Google nor the Police are corrupted institutions, rather, they can in some instances do things we don't want them to or that are actually bad. Meaning, I suggest in all likelihood there was likely some kind of material reason fore these '7 disclosures'. They used the term 'emergency' and I buy it. What we need to do is close the loophole and adapt the judicial process so as to be able to accomodate such situations. People are yelling about 'Orwell' - well that Dysoptia takes more than '7 times a year' in a nation of 350M to have surveillance abused on them. Again, needs to be sorted out, but we have to contextualise this.