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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I can’t seem to find the direct link, but I remember when the state of Illinois created a program to give these out for free

Recall at the time I mentioned to friends… I bet police get direct access and within 5 years, here we are lol

Many utility companies still do https://themoneyninja.com/free-google-nest-thermostat/

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Do the thermostats have cameras in them?

They have occupancy sensors (not cameras), but those can still be used for surveillance.

Iam not sure. That means that it has to log every triggered sensor.

I only have nest protect (stove heating) with occupancy sensor/pathlight and I really dont think it will record motion events nor submit them later (while connected). Could be wrong.

The occupancy sensors include wifi and bluetooth.

For nest thermostats, they advertise that their cloud based algorithm uses your phone location and occupancy sensor data to switch between “home” and “away” set points, so they have to be sending the sensor readings to the cloud. From there I can’t understand why they wouldn’t log those.

I have no direct experience, but every time I see Illinois mentioned on commentary (HN, reddit, etc.) it's always surrounding corruption.

FWIW, Illinois sometimes does crazy things the other way too. They banned facial recognition altogether, so Nest (and other cameras) can't offer the "familiar faces" feature, like to not alert you when a spouse comes home instead of a stranger.

Facebook also paid me several hundred dollars because they were auto tagging faces for Illinois users.

Illinois actually has some of the strongest privacy legislation in the country. I got a $350 check from Facebook for running facial recognition on my photo without permission, and Google owes me a similar amount when it's class action gets approved.

Check out the Illinois BIPA, it's the reason tech companies are trying to get federal privacy legislation that preempts state law.

You haven't seen my comments praising Chicago ?

The friendliest city I've ever lived, amazing public transit and where I met my first real girlfriend.

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