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Comment by austinkhale | Hacker News Reader

I've been using UniFi cameras for a couple of years now, writing to a local SSD (~ 40 days of storage), stored in a UDMPro.

The initial outlay is a bit more expensive but the setup is rock solid, provides tons of network analytics, has smart lights paired next to the cameras, and continues to work even when my ISP has issues. I've _voluntarily_ given footage to the police a couple of times but it feels much better when the entire system is within my control, sitting in my office.

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I'm curious. Do you currently have Unifi remote access [1] enabled, or is any remote access done through a VPN that you control? I suspect that if a law enforcement agency were sufficiently determined, they could convince Ubiquiti to give them access to your system if you had remote access turned on. Whether this is realistic depends on your threat model.

[1] https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012240067-UniFi-Net...

With a security-minded setup, Ubiquiti would not be able to grant remote access. Whether they actually have a security-minded setup or not is the question. As a user of their stuff, I have remote access disabled. I can access everything I need through Home Assistant, which is completely controlled by me.

You can get by much cheaper as well - e.g. occasionally I use TP-Link Tapo cameras which record to internal SD card and can also stream to Synology NAS Surveillance Station software (all local).

I'm a bit miffed that the app is trying to sell cloud storage, but for now a full cheap local setup is still possible.

(For a serious setup I'd of course opt for something more serious).

Does Synology NAS have a mobile app that can view the recordings?

Also what are some good 4k Wi-Fi cameras that work with Synology?

Great to know, as a fellow UDM owner I was ironically working on making the switch from a NetGear camera setup a week ago because of their awful option sets and related interface, their increasing cloud pricing, and finally and most importantly what happened in the OP.

Couldn't the police in theory get a warrant for the footage on your SSDs? The problem with Ring is that they give data to police without warrants, but in this case the problem seems to be the over-invasion of privacy of the warrant system.

If the police aren't going into your home to seize your hard drive, it might be a subpoena, rather than a warrant. The advantage here is that you can fight it. For the subject of this story, he likely could have fought to only turn over footage of the outside of his home -- not the footage from inside his home and store.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpoena_duces_tecum

Note that as soon as the police inform you they are seeking data you have to ensure you preserve it. That may mean you have to buy additional storage while you fight it. If the police lose the case but can prove that the data expired before they lost they can then get you for deleting the data!

Not just the police. It can be for any law suit. I had to help someone that was in a legal battle with a construction company, and they had cameras showing the hours the work was being done including while the site was red tagged. I had to download the footage to external drives while they were away on vacation to ensure the copies were preserved before the system rolled over the older data. Once the lawyers knew the cameras existed, they issued the order and it became a nightmare ever since. I'm sure the expense of all of those drives was a rounding error in the overall cost of the case, but it's just another one of those things that stuck with me on the vindictiveness of an opposing counsel and the games they are allowed to play.

IANAL but the short answer is yes. Slightly longest answer is probably, but they'd have to convince a judge that this camera has something worthwhile compared to any other cameras on that street. Somewhat paradoxically the more of your neighbors have things like Ring the "safer" you are from something like this.

To be clear, you’re safer from being the one to give up footage, but you’re not “safer”. You have a street filled with cameras, and implicitly with this argument, it’s easy for the police to gain access to some of the cameras. So all you gain is not being the directly invaded privacy wise, but you’ll already have lost since being filmed all the time anyways.

Yes I just meant "safer" in the "having to give the police your data" sense and not any other (more important) ones.

IANAL, but it seems that would require the equivalent of a warrant to search your house. (among other things, they would need to actually get physical possession of your SSDs for the key to be useful, so they'd need a warrant for an actual physical search)

If judges in your area are giving those out like candy then you've got a problem, whether you have security cameras or not.

They absolutely can and, in the era before widespread cloud cameras, routinely did.

Are the UniFi cameras just IP but use PoE?

Yes.

Anyone recommend a UniFi specific model? (ideally non-wired)

The Flex models (G3 and G4) are the only non-wired cameras they offer.

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