House surveilence cameras filming onto the street?
Discussion
A friend of mine is getting irritated about a neighbours cctv which is pointing across the road towards his cars and property. Before he takes it up with the neighbour are there any things he should know about, ie is it legal for the neighbour to do this? Is there a data protection requirement? I sense a falling out for him but thought I'd ask on here. Thanks.
I think was the most recent one asking a similar question and had details of the requirements / legalities somewhere in thread.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Boosted LS1 said:
A friend of mine is getting irritated about a neighbours cctv which is pointing across the road towards his cars and property. Before he takes it up with the neighbour are there any things he should know about, ie is it legal for the neighbour to do this? Is there a data protection requirement? I sense a falling out for him but thought I'd ask on here. Thanks.
Go and talk to them - see what is actually covered. My issue would be a pan/tilt/zoom camera which could look through a window.Personally, i would love my neighbour to pay for CCTV to cover my property. I have discussed this with my neighbours about getting it, and they were well up for it - they just wanted to know what was covered (i.e. back garden - them sitting outside), and how they could get access to the video if they needed to. Some were well up for paying to allow it to cover their property also.
Boosted LS1 said:
A friend of mine is getting irritated about a neighbours cctv which is pointing across the road towards his cars and property. Before he takes it up with the neighbour are there any things he should know about, ie is it legal for the neighbour to do this? Is there a data protection requirement? I sense a falling out for him but thought I'd ask on here. Thanks.
I'm sure if your mates car or house get screwed over,the neighbours footage would be helpful.Boosted LS1 said:
Thanks for the links. I think she doesn't like the invasion of privacy and wants to stop it happening. Should the operator be registered in some way if he is recording images?
Your post throws up a couple of points:1. There should be no expectation of privacy out in the street.
2. If the neighbour is registered in some way, would that remove her concerns?
CaptainMorgan said:
Kinky said:
Does your mate have kids? If so, could they argue that they're concerned about paedos, and posting it on the web ......
Words fail me. Kinky said:
It's a valid concern. And how is he to know where exactly it's pointing at and capturing 
Of course the quality at such a distance won't be the best, but how is he to know that.
So you're happy to accept that the OP's friend has no idea exactly where the camera is actually pointing, no idea of what footage it is taking, and no idea about the quality of that footage, but they should still be concerned that if they have children, then the neighbour could well be a paedophile because they have CCTV outside their house? Of course the quality at such a distance won't be the best, but how is he to know that.Nothing about that kind of thinking suggests an element of paranoia to you?
When you walk down the street, if you see someone even glance in the direction of a child, is your instant assumption is that they must be a paedophile?
How about someone filming something in the street with a mobile phone whilst children are about? - Is it your thought that they are highly likely to be paedophiles, regardless of what they might be filming?
It seems a bit strange to me that you should instantly go down the "could be a paedophile" route on this subject, rather than making a suggestion that the neighbour could simply be a nosey neighbour, or even possibly a voyeur. Why would your thinking go down that route? - It's not an assumption that most people would spring to!
As I say, your "valid concern" sounds far more like paranoia to Me!
As for the OP's friend, I suspect that they're worrying over nothing really!
Paedo.
I stay in a small block of flats with a private school at the end of the road. Lots of children pass twice a day to get to the shop/train station.
Last year someone moved into a flat next door and immediately installed three cameras on the outside of his part of the building. Single guy of middle age, no car, quiet area, first floor, video entry to the building, nothing overlooking. The obvious conclusion was nonce...
We're in a conservation area so permission required, we're not allowed Sky dishes or anything else. A neighbour complained and they were removed. Whether that was due to planning, his landlord or him being a sex offender I'm not sure.
I stay in a small block of flats with a private school at the end of the road. Lots of children pass twice a day to get to the shop/train station.
Last year someone moved into a flat next door and immediately installed three cameras on the outside of his part of the building. Single guy of middle age, no car, quiet area, first floor, video entry to the building, nothing overlooking. The obvious conclusion was nonce...
We're in a conservation area so permission required, we're not allowed Sky dishes or anything else. A neighbour complained and they were removed. Whether that was due to planning, his landlord or him being a sex offender I'm not sure.
Thanks for the replies. I'll pass them on. For some reason I thought that there would have to be a data protection/registration person recorded if video film was being collected. I also thought that you could only record film on your own property. It looks as if I'm wrong about this.
I have 4 cameras round my house, 2 of them cover part of the road in front and part of my neighbours driveway. I get on well with the neighbour so he's fine with it and i'm sure that should it be needed then the footage would be welcomed.
I did a bit of research and the only guidelines i could find for private installations is that there should be a sign up somewhere, doesn't matter on the size i don't think and that the cameras shouldn't be covering any private property without permission.
This is just from Google though and some forums so don't quote me on accuracy.
My system allows me to pick areas on the screen and mask them so that when the footage is recorded it just puts a big black area; this could be an option if your mate wants to take it up with his neighbour.
The first question needs to be why he has an issue though, IME they are a good idea in general.
I did a bit of research and the only guidelines i could find for private installations is that there should be a sign up somewhere, doesn't matter on the size i don't think and that the cameras shouldn't be covering any private property without permission.
This is just from Google though and some forums so don't quote me on accuracy.
My system allows me to pick areas on the screen and mask them so that when the footage is recorded it just puts a big black area; this could be an option if your mate wants to take it up with his neighbour.
The first question needs to be why he has an issue though, IME they are a good idea in general.
Boosted LS1 said:
Thanks for the replies. I'll pass them on. For some reason I thought that there would have to be a data protection/registration person recorded if video film was being collected. I also thought that you could only record film on your own property. It looks as if I'm wrong about this.
If footage is being captured beyond the boundaries of a private property, then the CCTV owner ought to be registered with the ICO:https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/cctv/
That said, it's likely that many home CCTV systems will not currently comply with this, as although this rule appears to have been around for some time, it doesn't seem to have been widely publicised until fairly recently - our local neighbourhood watch newsletter ran a short piece about it only a couple of months ago...
And whilst the guidance suggests that home CCTV systems should try and restrict the amount of footage they capture, if there's reasonable justification for needing to capture beyond the boundaries of the property, then provided the owner is registered as above then there's nothing specifically illegal about it. It may however then fall under other areas of the law such as harrassment, anti social behaviour etc, based on the specifics of the installation in question (e.g. is the camera just capturing the public road/pavement and perhaps the edge of a neighbours private driveway/garden, or is it pointing directly at a neighbours front door/bedroom window/etc, is there any previous history of antagonism between the CCTV owner and the neighbour which may have escalated into their use of CCTV as the next step in their harrassment etc. etc...).
Unless there is history between your friend and the CCTV owner, then whatever your friend does next should be done as politely and non-abrasively as possible. If they haven't even spoken to the owner yet about the cameras, then the first approach ought to be phrased in such a way as to make the owner aware of their concerns without instantly getting them on the defensive - opening the conversation with something like "oi, why are your cameras pointing at my property?" is a no-no (let alone the utterly idiotic suggestions above regarding the suggestion of paedophilic behaviour), whereas something like "it looks like your camera might be covering the car I park over the road, do you think I could have a quick look at what it can see?" is more likely to result in a positive response.
As other (more sensible) posters have mentioned above, the average home CCTV camera really doesn't capture anything like as much detail as some people seem to think they do, and add to that the options within the system to blank out parts of the image, this could well be a complete non-story. So the first step for your friend really has to be to engage with the owner and see for themselves what the cameras are *actually* capturing as opposed to what their somewhat suspicious mind has persuaded them they're capturing.
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