Waymo says its cameras are for checking your seatbelt. Then a researcher found a hidden page in Waymo's own app saying cameras would be used to "tailor ads and offers to your interests." Waymo called it "placeholder text." That is a remarkably specific placeholder. Waymo says it blurs faces to protect your privacy. The LAPD posted unblurred Waymo footage on YouTube. Arizona police have been pulling Waymo footage since 2016. When cops ask for "accurate depiction," the blurring disappears. Waymo won't say how long it keeps the footage, won't say if it's shared with the military, and won't even say how many cameras are inside the car. The 29 cameras outside see 500 metres in every direction — including into people's homes.
What they claim: Waymo says it only collects data necessary for safe driving. It does not proactively share footage with police.
What we found: Every Waymo vehicle has 29 cameras with a 500-metre range, recording continuously as it moves through neighbourhoods. 250,000+ rides per week across San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. No pedestrian, cyclist, or bystander consents to being recorded. EFF's Dave Maass warned: "What starts as investigating hit-and-runs could easily expand to tracking protesters or monitoring everyday activities." During the June 2025 LA immigration protests, protesters set fire to at least five Waymo vehicles — partly because they saw them as surveillance infrastructure.
What they claim: Waymo states: "We do not use facial recognition or other biometric identification technologies to identify individuals."
What we found: Waymo released the Waymo Open Dataset publicly — 1,150 scenes across four cities, 12 million labelled 3D objects including pedestrians with bounding boxes and unique track IDs enabling temporal tracking of individual pedestrians across frames. Over 1,300 academic papers have been published using this data.
What they claim: Waymo states cameras are for safety only — seatbelt checks, cleanliness, lost items. Spokesperson: "machine learning systems are not designed to identify individual people."
What we found: In April 2025, researcher Jane Manchun Wong found an unreleased Waymo privacy page in the production app stating: "Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests." The page included opt-out toggles for interior camera data used for "training GAI" (generative AI). Waymo dismissed it as "placeholder text."
What they claim: Waymo says it blurs license plates and faces in footage to protect bystander privacy. Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana emphasises "pushing back against unwarranted demands."
What we found: The LAPD published raw Waymo footage marked "Waymo Confidential Commercial Information" on its YouTube page to identify a hit-and-run driver — unblurred. Mesa and Chandler police in Arizona have been using Waymo footage since 2016. At least nine warrants have been served to Waymo in San Francisco and Maricopa County. Waymo declined to tell WIRED how long it retains footage, whether it has shared data with federal law enforcement or the military, or how many cameras are inside its vehicles.
What they claim: Waymo claims transparency and rider trust as core values. It publishes transparency reports about law enforcement requests.
What we found: Waymo declined to tell WIRED how many cameras are inside its vehicles, how long footage is retained, or whether it has ever turned over footage to federal law enforcement or the military. The company refuses to specify data retention periods for exterior footage that captures millions of bystanders.
What they claim: Waymo's privacy policy states it "will not share personal information we collect through our products and services with other Alphabet companies" beyond providing services to Waymo or with consent.
What we found: Waymo is an Alphabet "other bet" that lost $1.2 billion in 2024. The leaked draft privacy page referenced training "GAI" (generative AI) — Alphabet's generative AI is built by Google DeepMind. The Waymo Open Dataset has already been released publicly with 12 million labelled 3D objects including pedestrians, used in 1,300+ academic papers.
What they claim: Waymo cites its own study showing 80% fewer injury crashes and 92% fewer pedestrian crashes than human drivers.
What we found: NHTSA opened investigation PE24016 after 22 complaints including 17 crashes. The probe found collisions with stationary objects — gates, chains, poles, parked vehicles. In May 2024, a Waymo hit a wooden utility pole, prompting a recall of 672 vehicles. In May 2025, another recall of 1,212 vehicles for collisions with roadside barriers. A Waymo struck a child pedestrian, prompting a separate NHTSA investigation.