Google’s Nest Will Provide Data to Police Without a Warrant

Google will allow “emergency disclosures” of video footage to the police from its Nest cameras, without a warrant.

It was recently revealed that Ring, owned by Amazon, has handed over doorbell camera footage to law enforcement at least eleven times this year — without the owners’ permission or a search warrant.

As reported by CNET, Google will allow law enforcement to access data from its Nest products — or theoretically any other data you store with Google — without a warrant.

“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.”

An unnamed Nest spokesperson did tell CNET that the company tries to give its users notice when it provides their data under these circumstances. Google “reserves the right” to make emergency disclosures to law enforcement even when there is no legal requirement to do so.

“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.

Other Smart Doorbell Providers

While Amazon and Google have both said they would hand over a users’ data to law enforcement without a warrant. Arlo, Apple, Wyze, and Anker, owner of Eufy, all confirmed to CNET that they won’t give authorities access to a users’ smart home camera’s footage unless they’re shown a warrant or court order.

These companies would be legally bound to provide data to the authorities if they were shown a legal document. But, unlike Google and Amazon, they will not otherwise share camera footage with law enforcement, even if they had an emergency request for data.

Apple’s default setting for their doorbells is end-to-end encryption which means the company is unable to share user video at all.

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