Data ownership issues like this in the US will never be pushed by existing political interests, hopefully we'll see more EFF-ish PACs in the future that take a page from the fascists and provide the written laws and bills they would like enacted to state and municipal governments so local representatives can edit the title block and get back to harassing their interns.
Springfield, Massachusetts if you're curious.
I don't know how exactly it's in the US, but in EU security cam footage is considered to be personal information and as result of that GDPR applies. So whoever controls the security camera is the data controller and is required to e.g. provide access to people who were recorded. In this case it would likely be the home owner and unless Google was acting as data processor for the home owner they wouldn't be allowed to process that data.
I don't think you have gdpr obligations if your private cameras are just capturing your own grounds and home.
But it DOES apply if your private cameras capture footage of public places.
Interestingly, it looks like it must apply to all cameras in and around AirBNBs.
2.3 Household exemption
As far I understand it, if the cameras are pointed towards your home the exemption applies. If there is even a partial view of the street it would not apply (like the case is with many doorbell cameras). If there was a fence and the camera did not see above the fence it would likely apply though if there is a gate on the view it might not.
The next day, they found someone offering to sell the same bikes online (in the same geographical area even). They gave this info to the police, basically "hey here is someone trying to sell known stolen property" and the police told them to try and set up a meeting with the sellers themselves! Called back a week later, still had not even assigned a detective.
$20k is not pocket change, so it does make me wonder exactly what kinds of property crimes they do investigate, if any.
Corruption is rampant in the "developed" world but we just use different words for it.
A town of 300 people I grew up next to, always had their one cop ticketing every car that didn't slow down from the posted 55 mph (but honestly, it was always faster) to 30 mph, or accelerated over 30 before they passed the city limits sign.
The city government loved that guy, because he brought in thousands of dollars every week.
When the NYPD threw a fit over de Blasio, they famously refused to arrest anyone unless "it was absolutely necessary". Why? The police union wanted to hurt NYC's[0] budget.[0] It's the same reason why civil forfeiture is so prevelant.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-ben...
But yes, in the general case you're right that law enforcement is a revenue generator.
Unfortunately this situation is by no means unique.
> That has to be unsettling.
And now you know why there has been a growing movement predicated on the idea that the vast sums of money we spend on police may not be well-spent.
The police get a lot more leeway to do bad things because some percent of society just defaults to giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's a few things contributing to it. First is not having enough man power. And also a lot of stuff isn't worth the expense of investigating. A stolen laptop, phone, or bike just isn't worth the cost of detectives hunting it down. $20k of police work to get a $1000 laptop doesn't make much sense.
And it’s not like those cases even go to trial. I don’t have the exact data on hand, but I’d be seriously surprised if >90% of small-time drug crimes ended up with a plea deal that most of the time doesn’t even involve pleading guilty to a felony.
Police regularly spend countless man-hours investigating people for selling $20 worth of marijuana. Those are not open and shut cases, they have to spend time building cases, use confidential informants or undercover officers to gather damning evidence that won't be thrown out in court, etc.
Why would they need to justify anything? They have no one to answer to. Look at groups like the Uvalde police who are internationally known fuckups at this point and they’re still just throwing other people under the bus left and right in response. The police only do their job when they feel like it and that’s usually never unless it’s writing down that they went to guard a construction site for the overtime pay.
In my experience, these capabilities are only used to protect the politically connected or for oppression.
I’d be less skeptical if the program allowed any homeowner to pull any nest footage that included their property, and also allowed individuals to pull any footage that included them.
Of course, that will never happen.