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Comment by hannasanarion | Hacker News Reader

Police can get footage from Nest cameras, indoor and outdoor, without owner permission by applying directly to Amazon, and users can't opt out of Amazon's "Rekognition" tool that is always on and alerts police when a face on their wanted list is recognized on a camera.

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That tool had better not have a false positive rate that can be measured or Jeff Bezos will have some blood on his hands. The response to a 'wanted' criminal being spotted can easily cause that wanted person to end up dead and if it turns out to be the wrong person afterwards that would be more than just a little bit problematic.

>Police can get footage from Nest cameras, indoor and outdoor, without owner permission by applying directly to Amazon

So that brings us full circle to police are able to get footage from your CCTVs without your permission too by applying for a warrant directly to the court.

You have your own CCTV tapes, and you know when they are being seized because the warrant is delivered to you, not the manufacturer of your camera.

Applying for a warrant through a legal process is absolutely not the same as requesting data from a tech company (especially because Amazon has incentive to cooperate with police in order to continue to sell these cameras)

Amazon is going to require a subpoena/warrant to turn over video...I'm not sure why you think their cooperation with police is required in order to continue selling cameras.

Why do you think that their cooperation must be required before they will cooperate? Police are major Amazon customers as well, what's to keep them from handing over data to preserve their good-will?

>Why do you think that their cooperation must be required before they will cooperate?

Because they have written Law Enforcement Guidelines that are pretty clear and otherwise as a lawyer I know they don't just turn over customer data and information without a written order (and even then, they may object and fight it in court).

Why do you believe they are just turning over consumer data/info/video without any court order (besides, police are customers and Amazon wants to keep customers happy)?

They aren't going to get a warrant if they don't know your CCTV system exists, whereas Ring provides law enforcement with a map of their surveillance network. You won't know when your Ring footage is seized by law enforcement, but you'd sure know if you were served a warrant.

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