How the FBI managed access Nancy Guthrie's Google Nest camera even though it was turned off

Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping has led many to question how private their data actually is, as the FBI has managed to recover footage of a suspect from her doorbell camera, despite it being supposedly disabled.

Shared by FBI Director Kash Patel in a post on X, the images and video footage shows a masked individual approach her house, following power being completely disabled.

It shouldn't surprise you to find out that your data is never truly safe or secure if it's being uploaded and shared on the cloud, as while the convenience is certainly handy, it's far from private.

As reported by Tom's Guide, the situation in Guthrie's case is a little more complicated though, as she appeared to have a 2nd Generation Google Nest Doorbell, which is both wireless – so it didn't shut off when the house's power was cut – and it has a small amount of on-device storage.

Following the Wi-Fi connection cutting out at her home, the device then switched to local storage, with three hours of event-based data also captured without a Nest Aware subscription.

This footage was then stored within Google's servers despite being 'deleted' – as things don't actually get removed entirely straight away – allowing officials to recover it from the backend before it was overwritten.