Home surveillance companies are under scrutiny in the wake of two national news events drawing attention to privacy concerns surrounding the use of Ring and Nest security systems.
A Super Bowl commercial for Ring, a home security company owned by Amazon, has led to questions about how much data home cameras are gathering.
Separately, new Google Nest camera footage released in connection with 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie's case has turned a spotlight on how and where footage from home security monitors is stored.
The Super Bowl ad for Ring, a home security company owned by Amazon, has led to questions about how much data home cameras are gathering. Meanwhile, new Google Nest camera footage released in connection with 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie's case has turned a spotlight on how and where footage from home security monitors is stored.
ABC News has reached out to both Amazon and Google for comment on privacy concerns relating to Ring and Nest.
Here is a primer on privacy concerns with home security camera systems.
What is the Ring camera controversy?
Ring found itself at the heart of the debate over privacy and security after its Feb. 8 Super Bowl ad promoting the company's Search Party feature went viral.
The ad, which centers on a fictional family scouring their community for their missing dog, demonstrates how the Search Party feature activates neighboring Ring home cameras to be used in the search.
The commercial was met with swift backlash from viewers, some of whom compared the feature to spyware or questioned its legality.
Bill Budington, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, spoke with ABC News and explained why some viewers appeared to be concerned about the feature.
"The visuals that were given were kind of meant to impress, but they were seen as creepy," Budington said. "If this surveillance network that people have on their homes and in their front doors is able to identify dogs, then there's no reason why they would be unable to identify people."
In an interview with "ABC News Live" on Tuesday, Ring founder and former CEO Jamie Siminoff addressed the backlash to the Super Bowl ad, saying he "didn't expect the reaction" it received.
"I understand, though, the concerns. The way we built it is privacy is, like, paramount to the actual service," Siminoff said at the time.
Furthering controversy around those privacy concerns, Ring and Flock Safety, another surveillance company, recently walked back their plans to work with one another on a "Flock Safety integration," which would have allowed public safety agencies to utilize Flock's technology to submit "Community Requests" in order to gather information from Ring home security cameras during the course of an investigation.
According to Ring, "no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety," as the integration was canceled prior to launch.
ABC News has reached out to Ring for further comment on the canceled Flock integration.
Flock said in a statement to ABC News that the decision to terminate the integration was mutual.
Some civil liberty groups, such as the ACLU, have criticized Flock, saying the data provided to local law enforcement can be shared with federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Flock denies working with ICE or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security and said ICE does not have "direct" access to Flock cameras, systems or data.
Last month, Flock denied working with ICE or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security and said ICE does not have "direct" access to Flock cameras, systems or data.
Questions around the storage of home camera footage have also come into focus amid the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, who investigators say appears to have been kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of Feb. 1.
On Feb. 10, investigators released new videos and images of an individual -- wearing a mask and appearing to be armed with a gun -- that were captured by a Google Nest doorbell camera at Nancy Guthrie's home.
Authorities said Nancy Guthrie did not have a Nest subscription at the time of her disappearance. The video of the individual was recovered "from residual data located in backend systems," FBI director Kash Patel stated in a social media post.
According to Google's website, Nest home security cameras send footage to Google "only if you or someone in your home has explicitly turned the camera on or enabled a feature that needs it (such as Nest Cam monitoring)."
"You can always turn the camera off," the company states.
It adds that "when video footage is stored with your Google Account (for example, via a subscription to Google Home Premium or Nest Aware), you can access, review and delete this footage at any time."
Google notes elsewhere that all Nest video history "is deleted on a rolling basis."
"This means that, depending on the Nest Aware subscription you have, older saved video is deleted from the cloud after a certain number of days," it states.
Depending on the type of Nest camera you have, you can typically review video or photos from events with a three hour history, even without a Google Home premium subscription, the company states.
Ring, meanwhile, states on its website that users must have a Ring subscription in order to review any video recorded on home cameras and doorbells, and that "only events that occur after you have subscribed will be recorded."
Ring also allows users to activate an optional security feature using end-to-end encryption that allows users to keep the password for their security products protected and private.
Ashkan Soltani, former executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, told ABC News it's worth considering what you are sharing with companies when you decide to install a home surveillance system.
"Just by having a Ring camera or, you know, a Nest camera, you are inevitably collecting data about you and your neighbors, the public," he said, adding that information is accessible to companies behind the surveillance systems, regardless of privacy policies.
According to Budington, law enforcement can generally work with companies like Nest or Ring in order to locate footage that could be helpful to an investigation.
"There's no ownership of the consumer to that footage," Budington said, explaining that police previously needed to speak with the owners of home security cameras or get a warrant in order to obtain the footage. "Now, they just have that at their fingertips, and there's no manual police work needed. They can just go to Ring and ask for it, and if Ring gives [it to] them, then they have access to a massive surveillance network."
Budington said Nest works in a similar way.
A transparency page on Nest's website states, "Just like many other technology companies, Nest may get requests or orders from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data ... When we get a request for user information, we review it carefully and only provide information within the scope and authority of the request."
"Privacy and security are incredibly important to us," it continues. "Before complying with a request, we make sure it follows the law and Nest's policies. We notify users about legal demands when appropriate, unless prohibited by law or court order. And if we think a request is overly broad, we'll seek to narrow it."
Ring's law enforcement guidelines page states that the company "does not disclose user information in response to government demands (i.e., legally valid and binding requests for information from law enforcement agencies such as search warrants, subpoenas and court orders) unless we're required to comply and it is properly served on us."
"Ring objects to legal requests it determines to be overbroad or inappropriate," it adds.
Despite those reassurances, Soltani summed up the capabilities of these technology companies -- and their potential ramifications -- bluntly.
"They very much don't want this to be well known ... that they have such a vast ability to surveil people and collect data that often surpasses law enforcement's capabilities," he said.
