A burglar used a Waymo to steal yoga clothes in San Francisco — and got away with it
Quick Answer
A burglar successfully used a Waymo robotaxi to steal yoga clothes in San Francisco, raising concerns about the security and handling of footage captured by Waymo's autonomous vehicles.
Quick Take
This incident highlights potential vulnerabilities in how such companies manage surveillance data and the implications for public safety.
Key Points
- The burglar used a Waymo robotaxi for a theft in San Francisco.
- Waymo's handling of surveillance footage is under scrutiny after the incident.
- The incident raises questions about public safety and data security.
- Waymo's autonomous vehicles are equipped with cameras that capture footage.
- This case may influence future policies on surveillance data management.
📖 Reader Mode
~1 min readIn Brief
Posted:
A burglar used a Waymo while stealing yoga clothes in San Francisco this past January, and police have still not caught them.
That may sound counterintuitive given the widespread concern that Waymo vehicles and other robotaxis are rolling surveillance machines. But this curious case, reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, sheds some new light on how Waymo handles the footage captured by its cars.
While Waymo does capture and store ride footage, it’s not known how long that data is stored. What is sure, according to the report, is that it was gone “by the time the search warrant was filed in April.” Even more interesting is the detail that police were not able to identify the burglar through exterior camera footage because it had been “blurred for privacy reasons.”
The Waymo account data also apparently did not help. The burglar took the Waymo ride to a yoga studio called Hot 8 Yoga, where they entered, took the clothes, and got back in the robotaxi, according to the business’ own security footage. But the account information Waymo turned over to police as part of the search warrant “didn’t lead police to the suspect,” according to the Chronicle.
Topics
Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news
Latest in Transportation
— Originally published at techcrunch.com
Want this in your inbox every morning?
Daily brief at your local 8am — bilingual EN/中文, free.
More from TechCrunch
See more →
AI chip startup Etched defies skeptics, hits $10.3B valuation from big-name investors
AI chip startup Etched has achieved a $10.3 billion valuation after a $300 million Series C funding round, led by Sequoia and supported by notable investors like Andreessen Horowitz. The company claims to have developed innovative low-voltage chips for AI inference, significantly enhancing performance and reducing costs, with $1 billion in orders already booked.
