I am a huge fan of the Nest line of cameras – the Nest Cam Outdoor, Nest Cam Indoor (just buy the outdoor version), and the Nest Hello Doorbell. With that said, I will toss them all in the trash if the Google/Nest decide to follow Amazon’s (Ring) level of creepiness with regards to sharing camera data.
Let me back up a bit. If you haven’t read the news about Amazon’s Ring camera creepiness, read on.
At least 200 law enforcement agencies around the country have partnerships with Amazon’s home surveillance company – Ring. There is a “Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal” which allows police officers to see where each Ring camera is located. Police officers can request footage from these camera owners directly. Not cool. Sure the owners can say “no”, but I think most will hand over whatever an officer asks for.
I am all for catching bad guys but this type of camera database sharing is just too much. There are too many ways this could be misused. If I owned a Ring camera I would uninstall it today.
Let this be a warning to Google/Nest – don’t do this! Please!
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