I just read news that Ring has a non-obvious feature that allows law enforcement to access cameras/video without notifying the owner. Does Wyze have something like that? Is there something a customer needs to do to limit access to cameras by others?
[Mod Edit] Topic moved from Cameras to Watercooler.
No, Wyze is not enrolled in the Flock network like ring. If law enforcement want to view your Wyze videos, they need to ask you nicely and get your cooperation or use other legal processes like a court order to Wyze.
Honestly, if they joined the flock network Iâd probably ditch most of my Wyze account and switch to something 100% local based.
I am not sure how anyone else feels, but I would like to hear that directly from a WYZE employee versus a forum maven. No disrespect intended.
Itâs on the Wyze Data Security & Compliance page at the bottom and also in the Wyze Privacy Policy page.
Hmm, I may have missed it. Please let me know where the words law enforcement are found on this page:
Wyze Data Security & compliance
The information provided below was found here: Wyze Privacy Policy
In certain circumstances, we disclose (or permit others to directly collect) personal and non-personal information about you. We disclose the information about you described above in the following ways:
With vendors, service providers, and contractors that need this information to provide services to us, such as companies that assist us with web hosting, shipping and delivery, payment processing, fraud prevention, customer service, and marketing and advertising;
If you provide a product review or otherwise post content on our Services, the public/other users of our Services will be able to see this information.
In response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;
If we believe your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies, if we believe you have violated the law, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of Wyze or others;
We may preserve or disclose information in response to a request for information if we believe preservation or disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;
Between and among Wyze and our current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership; and
With your consent or at your direction. For example, if you choose to integrate our Devices or Services with third-party services (such as voice assistants), then those services will collect certain types of data depending on the nature of the service. Please review their privacy policies for details on the information they will receive and how they process this information.
All of that said, nowhere have I found anything stating exactly what @carverofchoice stated about Flock. Could you please point me to that information?
There is no need to reference Flock. Wyze does not sell your videos and Wyze does not share your video to anyone except in rare, extreme cases such as a court subpoena.
Wyze employees do not have the ability to view a userâs cameraâs live feed. This is because we use a P2P live streaming solution, which establishes a direct connection between the phone and the camera. While this is a technical solution to privacy, we also have a policy at Wyze prohibiting employees from viewing live streams.
Event videos, which are videos recorded when motion or sound is detected, are securely uploaded to the Wyze AWS server. From here, the video only would be accessed with permission from executive-level Wyze managers in extremely rare or severe cases, such as if Wyze were to be presented with a court subpoena. No other Wyze employees have access to these videos.
Your quote is about WYZE employee access and says nothing about law enforcement. Until WYZE clearly states that they are not working with Flock, it is best to assume that they are.
IMO, until it is clearly denied by an employee or within a policy, everything stated by Forum Mavens/Moderators (aka supreme fanboys) is nothing I would personally bank on.
Again, no offense intended. Just keeping it real.
NO offense taken. How is Flock going to get access to your video if Wyze doesnât sell or share and employees have no access to view and feed?
WYZE security policy states that they do not sell the data. I havenât read anywhere that they do not share your data.
Quote below is from: Wyze Data Security & Compliance | Our Commitment To You
We do not sell your data for money. Wyze does not sell your personal information in the conventional sense (i.e., for money). Itâs that simple. Your privacy is a big deal for us â a key part of being friends with our customers.
Then oddly enough the below is found here: Privacy policy
State privacy laws require certain disclosures about Personal Information we âsell.â Under these state privacy laws âsaleâ means certain scenarios in which Wyze has disclosed Personal Information to third parties in exchange for valuable or monetary consideration. Under California privacy law, the âsharingâ described below also constitutes a âsale.â Accordingly, Wyze âsellsâ Personal Information as described in the Third Parties With and To Whom We Share Personal Information section below.
Third Parties With and To Whom We Share and Sell Personal Information
We âshareâ personal information for the following commercial purposes: to advertise our products to you. We share the following categories of personal information to the following categories of third parties:
| Category of Personal Information | Category of Third Parties |
|---|---|
| Identifiers |
Advertising networks, internet service providers, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, and social networks.
| Internet or other electronic network activity information |
|---|
Advertising networks, internet service providers, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, and social networks.
We do not knowingly sell or share personal information about consumers under the age of 16 or a younger age, in accordance with applicable law. Wyze does not sell or share Facial Data or information that could be considered biometric information under applicable laws.
State privacy laws specify certain rights with respect to our collection of certain information those laws designate as âsensitiveâ personal information (âSensitive Personal Informationâ). We obtain consent to collect that information in those states where consent is required and offer rights to opt-out or limit the use of Sensitive Personal Information where legally required. Moreover, each stateâs privacy law may consider different pieces of information to be Sensitive Personal Information. When we notify residents of certain states that we collect Sensitive Personal Information, that means that we collect Sensitive Personal Information within the meaning of the law of that particular state. We collect Sensitive Personal Information in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. We may collect the following types of Sensitive Personal Information, to the extent included in your stateâs definition: precise geolocation information and Facial Data, which could be considered biometric data in some jurisdictions. We only use Sensitive Personal Information to the extent necessary to provide you the products or services in connection with which we collected that information or as permitted by applicable law. We do not use Sensitive Personal Information to infer characteristics about you.
You stated that you will only be satisfied by reading a statement from a Wyze employee. Please contact Wyze via email or phone so Wyze can properly address your concerns. Wyze has a special team set up to answer privacy, data collection, data retention, data sharing, etc. questions. Contact information is located at the bottom of the Privacy Policy page. Sending an email will most likely provide the fastest response.
Fair enough. Challenge accepted. Besides the fact that employees have told me this themselves multiple times, I will find some public references over the years for people:
Here is one statement from an AMA that seems to be definitive for everything in the company, and then clarifies that this includes the Palm Lock:
Wyze, in compliance with applicable law, will only provide user data to law enforcement in response to a valid subpoena, warrant or other similar official legal request.
Another Official Wyze employee statement:
Wyze does not share your data with law enforcement agencies or governmental bodies unless legally obligated.
This statement was also restated verbatim in this response here as well.
More was discussed here in the past:
Their reaction/response sounds pretty definitive to me, and theyâve reiterated it ever since.
They have also left the status of the wishlist item for this topic officially listed as âProbably Notâ:
The wishlist is made to match their internal systems, so if they did this, that wishlist will be updated to âWish GrantedââŚso feel free to âFollowâ that thread to be notified if that status ever changes.
Consumer Reports in May 2023 reached out to Wyze for an official comment on this issue:
Yet another official statement from a Wyze Employee:
Two replies about this on X/Twitter:
This also came up last September on X after the Charlie Kirk incident, with details here:
I believe this has been brought up in more AMAâs too, but I didnât take the time to search them all. If a person needs more direct evidence, then remember to ask about it again during the next AMA event, or follow @Seapup 's great advice to ask yourself through the proper channel:
No offense taken. I knew authoritative sources existed, I was just trying to give the TL;DR answer that they have stated countless times they donât do this, and never plan to. They said itâs not even a consideration or discussion point and would violate their foundational core values.
I hope that helps. 
Not why it cannot just be clear directly from Wyze on their website. This statement alone - or other official legal request - could just mean an officer of the law asks for itâŚ.
Fair enough. The ending ambiguity is not ideal for me either. I would like them to concretely say that they wonât comply with a simple ârequestâ for data, and will only ever share our data when absolutely legally compelled. Though in context of all the other statements where they said only with a warrant/court order or subpoena, it seems pretty clear they meant only when they are compelled, not asked with a âyou donât legally have to but weâre saying pleaseâ.
The ambiguity they used could even be intentional so that they have some degree of discretion in an extreme extenuating circumstance of some kind or in case there is some other kind of legal obligation besides subpoenas & warrants or something that would make them obligated based on superseding fiduciary obligations where refusing to comply in some circumstance could ruin the company somehow. Who knows. If they say âonly with a subpoena or court orderâ and then some other obscure legal requirement comes in to play that they werenât aware of, but forces them to share it anyway (maybe an executive order or a some kind of administrative rule in the law or something), then maybe someone would sue because even though they were legally obligated to do it, they previously only said âsubpoenas and court ordersââŚhence they are covering their bases by saying âOr similar [compelled] official legal request [that we are legally obligated to comply with]ââŚbut I doubt they will say more than they have above in previous public statements. If that is not sufficient for someone, I suspect no response will be sufficient without someone out there saying they couldâve changed their mind an hour later, or that they werenât definitive in some other way which will also apply to almost every cloud enabled company out there.
In that case I would say the best option is to use a local-only camera that the user can have full control over. Wyze is currently in the process of adding RTSP support to their cameras and I believe some people have reported that after initial setup and authentication they were able to use them without internet access. So that is an option for anyone really concerned who wants guaranteed privacy without having to spend money on all new local only PoE CC cameras.
But I will still set a reminder to myself to ask them for more direct clarification with an official statement during the next AMA event and will now use my tag I search for during AMAs to remind me what to ask them so I can get them to clarify whether the last part means they might share with an official request that isnât including a subpoena or court order, or what other types of legal requests they meant (I agree it is a good question/clarification worth asking):
#AMA2ASK
That is whatâs nice about Reolinkâs Ecosystem youâre in control of the video itâs not on the cloud at some companies servers.
With my setup it is stored on the SD at each camera, then as a backup it is also stored on a Network Attached Storage.
If need be it can all be wiped and overwritten by command, leaving me fully in control of recordings.
Reports are loose and not in the daily news, because they donât want a customer revolt. But Ring is not the only one granting access to video to police.
I do believe @carverofchoice when he explains stuff like this. I believe him (and a handful of others) to know much more about Wyze operations and policy than most of the rest of us.) Wyze has given me no reason to distrust them, but⌠But such things as wads of cash can be a big motivator to companies. And some just might rollover quietly and take a payout from Flock. I absolutely do not trust Flock. And even less trust the police. Thereâs already been arrest and prosecutions quietly of police using access to Flock to track exâs and their boyfriends. (I have not keep links to specific articles, but I can point to a TY channel that frequently reports stories. One have to set and look for them, or simply donât believe me. Thatâs okay. And separately thereâs this â https://deflock.me/
I started moving to products that store my video locally. Still have some Wyze cams, but removed the Cam+ sub and took out the SD card. I am not helping the police under any conditions. I even bought a doormat from Amazon, âCome back with a Warrantâ. Yep, old enough to be paranoid.
You can do the same thing with Wyze, just use the SD card and no cloud storage. Reolink isnât really any more safe for most people, except that they CAN disable the Internet on some of the cameras, But most people leave it enabled so they can access them remotely. And if you leave the internet enabled to be able to access the camera remotely through the Reolink app, that means that it can probably be accessed with a court order too.
The other slightly added. Downside with a company like Reolink is that they must comply with DPRChinaâs laws That require all Chinese companies to give the government backdoor access to everything secretly upon request. So there is a high likelihood the cameras have an intentionally built in back door to comply with their government laws.
I am not sure what could be accessed with a US Court order, but itâs conceivable that they could give law enforcement access to SD card playback through the account credentials if they were ordered to give full account access. I donât think they use E2EE, so this is very possible.
Reolink has confirmed that they definitely give law enforcement cloud videos upon legal demands for anyone using their subscriptions.
Basically, Reolink is no more safe, and less in some ways unless you shut off the internet to the cameras and canât access them through the Reolink app remotely. But if you do that, then they are a great privacy option. One of the best. But most people like the convenience of notifications and remote access, so That doesnât apply to most people.
Court order is not going to be of much use. They are going to have as hard of time proving I know what I am doing, how I did anything or if I remember how (all my data will accidentally be wiped, before I give them a bit. They would invest their time better knocking on neighbors doors. You see, I suffer from same that they do.
Its called Copnesia. A mysterious and highly selective form of amnesia commonly observed in law enforcement officers during investigations and courtroom proceedings. Symptoms include sudden inability to recall details events or actions taken during incidents under scrutiny. Often this condition miraculously resolves itself in less tyrannical or less consequential settings.
Example: During the hearing, the officer displayed a classic case of Copnesia, claiming he couldnât remember anything about the incident despite the detailed reports and video evidence. Also inflicts those police once they discover that they are under internal investigation. This infection is clearly defined and diagnosed when we hear the âsuspectâ say, âI donât remember, I donât remember doing thatâ or the rare but also expressed âI donât even know how to do thatâ. One of the most infamous but justified by department alibis for defense for this inflection is: âIt couldnât be me; I wasnât here that day,
Thanks for your time. I just sent an email to âprivacy@wyze.comâ with multiple questions. I also recently completed this web form:
Regards,
Known1
No problem and good to hear (read). It may take a little time to get back to you, but they do respond to questions/concerns.
Iâd like a way to give access automatically to my police department. Anything to assist crime fighting like all the package theft.