Google's network camera Nest reveals that past recording data that free users cannot play is automatically saved on the server
Google's network camera, Google Nest Cam, requires a paid subscription to
Cybersecurity experts how explain surveillance footage of Nancy Guthrie's home was recovered - CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cybersecurity-experts-nancy-guthrie-surveillance-footage-recovery/
Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest Unwittingly Reveal the Severity of the US Surveillance State
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/amazons-ring-and-googles-nest-unwittingly
In February 2026, Nancy Guthrie, mother of Savannah Guthrie, host of the NBC News morning news show ' Today ,' went missing.
Nancy was using a Google Nest Cam as a security camera for her home, but investigators said the camera had been disconnected and she was not subscribed to the paid Google Home Premium subscription.
Investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Pima County Sheriff's Department, who were investigating Nancy, revealed that they were able to recover video footage of the incident by extracting 'residual data from back-end systems' from the Google Nest Cam. The footage also showed a masked figure in front of Nancy's home, which is said to have been a breakthrough in solving the case more than a week after the incident.
CBS News points out that many people are questioning how the Google Nest Cam recordings were retrieved. According to Google, while Google Nest is available for free, users can only view real-time camera footage or footage from the past few hours, but not older footage.
If you subscribe to Google Home Premium, which costs 1,000 yen per month or 10,000 yen per year, you can check the past 60 days of 'activity detected video history' and view up to 10 days of continuous video history 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Google Home Premium subscription
Cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos explained that doorbell cameras like the Google Nest Cam have built-in backup mechanisms that store data across multiple layers, allowing for quick recovery.
'Internal storage uses a very lenient deletion mechanism, so non-paying users can't access their data,' Stamos said. 'Videos for non-subscribers are marked for deletion, but depending on the implementation details, the actual files may not be deleted for several days, and data may not be overwritten until free space is needed.'
'There's an old adage that 'data is never deleted, it's just renamed,' and I think this is a perfect example of that,' said Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer at privacy and security company Disconnect. 'When data is uploaded, it may be marked for deletion, but it may not actually be deleted.'
Jackson said most doorbell cameras have a tamper-proof mode, a security feature that warns users if the device is disconnected or damaged, which Jackson said could be a signal that companies are more likely to retain data for longer.
'From Google's servers' perspective, they can see if a device has gone offline, so if the last event stored was a tamper-detection event, and it was a motion event, it's entirely possible that Google tagged it to prevent it from being deleted, and that this event might have been of some value to law enforcement,' Jackson said.
Jackson pointed out that there is nothing in Google's terms of service that would prevent the company from enabling this feature and storing videos for long periods of time. He also said, 'Most users are unaware that such a feature even exists.' Furthermore, Jackson pointed out that Google could be subject to investigation by law enforcement agencies for successfully recovering recordings that should not have been stored.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who conducted the investigation, told Fox News , 'The FBI conducted a legitimate investigation, engaged a private company, and accessed systems to unearth material that would normally be deleted and no one would look for.'
In its Transparency Report , Google explains, 'When we receive a request for user information, we carefully review it and only provide information that is within the scope of the request and our authority. Privacy and security are very important to us. Before complying with a request, we verify that it complies with the law and Nest policies. We will notify users of legal requests where appropriate, unless prohibited by law or court order. If we determine a request is overly broad, we will work to narrow it.'
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