Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Technology

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

FBI Director Kash Patel said yesterday that investigators recovered footage from Savannah Guthrie's mother's doorbell camera using "residual data located in backend systems." This claim has many home security camera users asking an uncomfortable question: Is your data really gone when you hit delete...

Why ‘deleted’ doesn’t mean gone: How police recovered Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell footage
Image: The Verge

FBI Director Kash Patel said yesterday that investigators recovered footage from Savannah Guthrie's mother's doorbell camera using "residual data located in backend systems." This claim has many home security camera users asking an uncomfortable question: Is your data really gone when you hit delete?

When Nancy Guthrie went missing, officials said she had a doorbell camera, but that it had been forcibly removed, and she did not have a subscription. This meant there were no videos stored in the cloud. Ten days later, the FBI released footage from the camera, which was revealed to be a Nest Doorbell, clearly showing the masked suspect.

This …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Originally published at The Verge

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