Why ‘deleted’ doesn’t mean gone: How police recovered Nancy Guthrie’s Nest Doorbell footage

Source: The Verge

Overview

FBI Director Kash Patel announced that investigators recovered footage from Savannah Guthrie’s mother’s doorbell camera by extracting “residual data located in backend systems.” This revelation has prompted many home‑security‑camera users to wonder: Is your data really gone when you hit delete?

Investigation Details

• When Nancy Guthrie disappeared, officials noted that her doorbell camera had been forcibly removed and that she did not have a subscription, meaning no videos were stored in the cloud.
• Ten days later, the FBI released footage from the device, which was identified as a Google Nest Doorbell. The released video clearly shows the masked suspect.

Image: Video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell camera was recovered by Google and released by the FBI (The Verge, FBI)

Implications

The case demonstrates that even when users believe they have deleted their recordings, remnants can remain in backend systems and may be recoverable by law‑enforcement agencies.

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Read the full story at The Verge.