As a rule, if law enforcement has a warrant then it's going to be difficult to prevent them from gaining access. You can self-host and encrypt but that's difficult for mainstream users to do, and even for experts, it limits the tools you have access to. You can also be prosecuted for refusal to decrypt a device since SCOTUS hasn't yet ruled on the scope of the 5th amendment's protections with respect to encrypted personal devices.

I think the best solution is to set content to auto-delete (unless flagged) after some period of time. You can't turn over what you don't have.

"I think the best solution is to set content to auto-delete (unless flagged) after some period of time."

This is basically a necessity in on-site systems to free up space for additonal recordings anyways. Run a few cameras at decent resolution even at a fairly low framerate and you're looking at a couple TB per month.

Most systems (I think -- at least the ones I've seen) let you set it up so video is only recorded when the camera sees movement. Depending on what's in the field of view, that seriously cuts down on the memory requirement. Even inexpensive commercial systems will also allow you to specify areas in the field of view to ignore motion in, so that swaying trees and the like won't constantly trigger recording.

I have three cameras recording at a decent resolution and framerate, and together, about two weeks of video takes up less than 32Gb, because most of the time nothing is moving in the fields of view.

True, depending on the circumstances that works. It doesn't work great from some angles or other environmental factors. It works great for a door bell shot though.

> You can self-host and encrypt but that's difficult for mainstream users to do

It's really not. You can buy off-the-shelf systems from Amazon right now for around $500 that your grandmother could set up and have running without difficulty.

The real problem is the perception that this is a difficult thing for non-techy people to do.