EVwire brief: In January, a burglar broke into a yoga studio in San Francisco's Marina district, and the getaway car waiting outside was a driverless Waymo.
Police think it's likely the city's first burglary where the suspect fled in a self-driving car. Nearly six months on, despite the Waymo's onboard cameras and the credit-card-linked account it takes to hail one, they still haven't identified him or made an arrest.
The break-in itself was quick. Per the San Francisco Chronicle, the suspect was in and out of Hot 8 Yoga in under three minutes, loaded an armful of activewear into the car's trunk, climbed in, and let the Waymo carry him off down the street.
The Waymo waited outside the yoga studio while the suspect stole some items
Surveillance video from inside the studio, shown to the paper by studio manager Farah Issa, caught the car dropping him off, waiting while he worked, then pulling away. The footage never showed the perp’s face. As for the haul, Issa said, "He just stole a bunch of men's shorts."
You'd think a robotaxi bristling with cameras would be the easiest case a detective could ask for. The investigator on it, Sgt. Tim Faye, said much the same, stating "I would think it would be easier to solve in a Waymo." Police routinely pull footage from Waymos, Teslas and other camera-laden vehicles to identify suspects or piece together a timeline, sometimes even towing the cars to preserve the video.
Police routinely pull footage from Waymos, but in this particular case, the footage was not particularly useful
It didn't pan out. Police served a search warrant compelling Waymo to hand over the account that booked the ride and footage vehicle used as the getaway car. But the account details led nowhere, and Faye noted suspects often book with stolen information or a burner phone.
The video came up short too. By the time the warrant was filed in April, Waymo no longer had the car's interior footage, and the faces captured outside the vehicle were blurred for privacy.
Unfortunately, Waymo no longer had footage from the interior of the getaway car by the time the warrant was filed
Context:
Waymo doesn't say publicly how long it retains footage, and it blurs faces and license plates in the public research database it keeps. Its Jaguar I-Pace fleet are equipped with 29 cameras for a 360-degree view.
The company declined to comment on the case but said it weighs public safety against privacy, checks that law-enforcement requests are legally valid and pushes back to narrow overly broad ones, and doesn't use facial recognition.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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