By Aditya Soni and Jaspreet Singh
Feb 12 (Reuters) – Finding security camera footage in the high-profile abduction of Nancy Guthrie may have been delayed because it probably was stored as unorganized data on Google’s servers, experts told Reuters. But the fact that the data existed at all despite her not having a subscription to its doorbell camera service has some privacy advocates worried.
Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home on February 1, according to law enforcement officials. Although the home has a Google Nest doorbell camera installed, officials initially said no footage of the incident existed because Nancy Guthrie lacked a subscription, which is required if users want to store video data from the device for more than a few days.
Yet authorities on Tuesday released a video that FBI Director Kash Patel said was recovered “from residual data located in backend systems.”
Privacy advocates, professors and former FBI agents told Reuters that without a paid subscription to organize the clips for easy viewing, the footage likely existed as raw data in Google’s backup systems, possibly even requiring engineers to write custom software to manually reassemble it.
“Locating the data may have taken that time because it is possible the data could have been ‘written over’ on the server. That doesn’t mean it would be gone forever, just that it would take more time to locate it and recover it,” said Jeff Lanza, a former FBI special agent and president of the cyber security consultancy Lanza Group.
“Even if a device is not actively connected or subscribed, data may remain stored in cloud servers or backups.”
Google did not respond to a request for comment. It has told some publications that it was assisting with the investigation, while Patel has said the breakthrough on the footage was made possible by “working closely with our private sector partners.”
The FBI said it was providing technical and investigative support to its local partners.
PRIVACY IN DOUBT
Google’s ability to recover video even from non-subscribers has sparked privacy concerns.
It is not clear from Google Nest’s terms of service whether footage from non-subscribers is used for training its recognition technology. Companies want as much video as they can get to improve detection of objects and activities, experts said.
“Machine learning takes volumes of data to train. Thus, naturally a doorbell provider will want to collect all the data,” said Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor at UC Berkeley.
“Technology companies almost always have access to more information than users understand,” he added.
Officials have not indicated which Nest device Guthrie had but some newer models include up to three hours of free “event video history,” which refers to clippings triggered by motion or sound, even without a subscription, according to the company’s website.
Customers also have to agree to “Google’s processing of the Nest Cam Audio/Video Data” to use the devices, the terms of service for Nest show. The company has released a transparency report that shows compliance with legal data requests while notifying users and maintaining privacy protections.
The rising popularity of doorbell cameras such as those from Google Nest and Amazon-owned Ring have driven rapid growth in recent years for the global smart home security camera market, which is expected to total $9.77 billion in 2026, according to Mordor Intelligence.
Privacy advocates argue that their footage could be exploited by malicious actors. In one notable example, a technician for U.S. home security giant ADT pleaded guilty in 2021 to hacking into 220 customer accounts over nearly five years to spy on them.
But many people will “trade convenience for security,” even if it means giving up some privacy, said Collin Walke, a former Oklahoma state representative who is head of the cybersecurity and data privacy practice at law firm Hall Estill.
“They think they can protect themselves … but they don’t realize that on the back end, all that information is being pilfered,” Walke said.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sergio Non and Aurora Ellis)
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