Google will allow police to access your home camera data like Amazon. The company will give the cops access to users’ footage in the case of an emergency without permission. While Arlo, Apple, Wyze, and Anker won’t give police access to the smart home camera’s footage unless a warrant or court order, Google and Amazon are doing the opposite.
Google will share your footage with police without a warrant
Google will give police access to the footage because there is law enforcement. Ring, the Amazon-owned video doorbell and home security company, gave police footage only 11 times without permission from the owners of the cameras. With this access, the company gets much criticism from privacy activists.
Sean Hollister wrote about how Amazon will give police warrantless access to users’ footage in emergency cases. Also, Google has a similar privacy policy as Amazon’s. It means law enforcement can access data from the companies without the user’s consent.
Google said, “If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from dying or 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 persons cases. We still consider the requests in light of applicable laws and policies”.
In summary, with this law, Google will let police access your smart home footagelike Amazon. Apple, Arlo, Anker, and Wyze would be breaking the law if they didn’t, but it seems they will stand by their decision. Therefore, they won’t give police access to your footage without an emergency order or users’ consent.
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