In October 2025, Ring announced a partnership with Flock Safety, a company that sells license plate scanning equipment and software. Ring hasn’t specified when the partnership will take effect, but has said device owners will only share their footage if they do so voluntarily – sharing the footage would only be one-way, both companies said.
Google Nest also tracks requests for information from law enforcement agencies, but after 2019 it will stop publishing a transparency report limited only to Nest. This data will now be included in the general report for all Google products.
In Ms. Guthrie’s case, who did not pay for a Google Nest subscription, historical recordings would likely have been stored on just one server or multiple servers somewhere in one of Google’s data centers. It is possible that law enforcement authorities were able to access it with or without a warrant, according to their regulations, as the case could be considered an urgent circumstance.
Can I limit the use and sharing of my information?
In its guide to securing your security cameras, Wirecutter points out that beyond the manufacturers themselves, people should be concerned about hackers or stalkers gaining access to their cameras’ footage. They advise, when possible, enabling two-factor authorization and end-to-end encryption (if available), using unique passwords, and disabling access to accounts that allow shared access.
Less common, but still concerning, are cases where a security camera company or its employees access your data. To prevent this, you can enable end-to-end encryption, which limits viewing only to the owner of the video on a specially authorized device. The disadvantage is that you often miss out on the device’s functions. For Ring, this includes shared user access to videos, AI video search, 24/7 recording, and live mobile viewing, among others.
Neither Nest nor Ring have yet responded to a request for comment.