Why Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell footage has led to privacy concerns | US News
Why Nancy Guthrie’s doorbell footage has led to privacy concerns | US News
https://news.sky.com/story/why-nancy-guthries-doorbell-footage-has-led-to-privacy-concerns-13506329
Publish Date: 2026-02-11 14:54:00
Source Domain: news.sky.com
Doorbell footage showing a masked man approaching Nancy Guthrie’s home on the day of her disappearance has been released by the FBI.
It comes almost 10 days after the 84-year-old mother of TV host Savannah Guthrie went missing – and after local authorities said there was no available footage from the incident.
The retrieval of the video, which sees the suspect at the front door of Ms Guthrie’s home near Tucson, Arizona, holding a gun, has been a welcome development in the case.
FBI releases new images in the search for Nancy Guthrie. Pic: FBI
Yet some have raised concerns about what the footage’s existence says about our rights to privacy.
Here’s what you need to know about how the footage was retrieved and why it has proved controversial.
Video collected via ‘backend systems’, FBI says
Ms Guthrie, who lives alone, has a Nest camera on her front door.
Days ago, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Ms Guthrie’s camera was disconnected just before 2am on the night she disappeared – 1 February – and that despite the camera’s software detecting movement minutes later, no footage was preserved.
He didn’t explain how the camera was disconnected.
He also said the resident didn’t have a subscription with Nest, which would have meant footage was automatically saved.
FBI releases new images in the search for Nancy Guthrie. Pic: FBI
Sheriff Nanos did say that investigators were still trying to work with a tech company on the difficult forensic task of recovering any video from the property, where Ms Guthrie had multiple cameras.
Then on 10 February, FBI director Kash Patel said footage had been recovered via “backend systems”.
Sharing video and pictures of the suspect on Ms Guthrie’s door, Mr Patel wrote on X: “Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely…
