Police Have Asked Dropcam For Video From People's Home Cameras

Fusion
Apr. 24, 2015

"Like any responsible father, Hugh Morrison had installed cameras in every room in the flat,” is the opening line of Intrusion, a 2012 novel set in the near future. Originally installed so that Hugh and his wife can keep an eye on their kids, the Internet-connected cameras wind up being used later in the novel by police who tap into the feeds to monitor the couple chatting on their couch when they are suspected of anti-societal behavior. As with so many sci-fi scenarios, the novel’s vision was prophetic. People are increasingly putting small Internet-connected cameras into their homes. And law enforcement officials are using the cameras to collect evidence about them.

Dropcam, which makes popular $199 cameras that capture audio and video for live streams to smartphones or for storage in the cloud, tells Fusion that it has received a “limited number of law enforcement requests”--search warrants--for video from its customers’ cameras. The six-year-old company, which was purchased by Google-owned Nest Labs last year for more than $500 million, says it has only received these requests “in individual cases” and has not received “any broad-based government requests.” In other words, when law enforcement has come to Dropcam, it has been for eyes into a single home at a time, not a whole neighborhood.

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