How do you feel about cameras on housing?

Read the ICO’s comprehensive guidance on this:

ico.org.uk/for-the-public/home-cctv-systems/

Where possible owners should position their cameras to only capture their own property. However, if this isn’t possible and the CCTV captures someone else's property, a public area or communal space, then data protection law applies. This is because CCTV can capture images and voices of other people, and this counts as their personal information.

Try to solve this informally of you can but if your neighbours fail to comply, there’s a formal template letter you can use.

Obviously, make sure the position of your own camera is compliant.

Came to give the same advice as above. You are entitled to privacy. Please follow that link.

Is it a wildlife camera? Our neighbours have one.

Otherwise, I would not feel happy or at all comfortable about it.

A few years back, a neighbour across the street from us put up a camera which was pointed directly at our house. We complained to the police - he claimed it was just to protect his car, but they looked at it and it wasn't pointed at the car, but at our house, so he was made to take it down.

No I wouldn’t be happy having cameras pointing towards our property.
We have ring doorbell but we have aimed it so that it only covers half the drive & not people walking past the on the pavement.
The other thing is they pick up conversations, much to my friends horror. She made a comment about her daughter’s boyfriend being short, he’s quite touchy about it. The daughter is away abroad & they have heard every word, as they have sent a text back saying so 😳

We have door cameras, but they only show movement near the doors. You can hear and speak through them, but only when you press a button to do so. Ours are set to human height, but will occasionally pick up flapping sheets on the line, swooping bats or (oddly) a cat. We can't see into anyone's gardens, and the speaker facility is only used when someone is delivering something and we are away, so we can ask them to put it somewhere genuinely safe, and not leave it on the doorstep. I wouldn't want my phone to be constantly picking up random conversations anyway.

I wouldn't like a neighbour's camera trained on our house or garden, and would ask them to adjust it if they did.

I inherited a ring door bell when I moved into my semi bungalow last year. Recently my neighbours next door were away on holiday and I woke at 3am to what I thought was the sound of my front garden gate opening although my door bell camera hadn’t activated.

I had a look on the camera via my phone to check the noise and it was actually my neighbours arriving home from holiday and the noise was their metal gate opening . I was surprised that my doorbell camera clearly picked up their conversation as they walked up the path to their own their front door.

We have several cameras around our house (we were burgled a while ago - so we added the cameras afterwards). We are able to set ‘trigger’ zones within our property boundaries so the cameras only activate the video camera and notify us when someone (human motion) enters the zones. We also set privacy areas for our neighbours. These are blacked-out areas on the camera live views so we can't see anything on any of our neighbours’ properties.

We have a wildlife camera pointing into the back garden. I like to watch the possums in the trees at night. I wouldn’t dream of pointing it at another house ( can’t see any from the back anyway )

It definitely isn't a wildlife camera unless he's pretending to be a badger.

Thanks for the link Graphite I suppose I'll have to talk to them. I really don't understand why they need cameras to talk to one another on. We just live in ordinary suburban houses with relatively small gardens (in the grand scale of things) I just didn't know if I was being over sensitive

I want to plant a hedge because I feel spied on by one particular neighbour .

He is hell to live next door to according to his immediate neighbour. He spies on her and has lists of complaints when she returns home from her very demanding job as a policewoman in one of the toughest parts of London
He has put cameras up everywhere and records everything that happens on our street.
Some people don't like it.
Some have complained.
If you complain about anything it's the end of your friendship with him as I know to my cost .
I'm now asked when am I moving on the rare occasions that I'm spoken to .
I personally think that he's neurotic and paranoid-possibly mentally ill !

Had a camera on back of the house for years. Woodland at the back and people (other residents) were cutting trees down illegally. Reported a couple who cut down two beautiful fir trees as they didn't want them shading their newly installed hot tub. Also had sound but only used to highlight to neighbour (illicit childminder) all tge noise tge children created whilst she sat using her phone at her garden seating. Our Alexa had to be switched off indoors as kids yelling etc was constantly setting it off. Alsi DH had a cochlear implant and noise especially screaming was a nighmare for him. When she heard the recording plus the threat of being reported it all stopped. Noise system has been turned off since.

JaneJudge

It definitely isn't a wildlife camera unless he's pretending to be a badger.

Thanks for the link Graphite I suppose I'll have to talk to them. I really don't understand why they need cameras to talk to one another on. We just live in ordinary suburban houses with relatively small gardens (in the grand scale of things) I just didn't know if I was being over sensitive

Gave me a laugh Jane. Visions of someone with big teeth and a Mohawk hairdo 😃

Doodledog

We have door cameras, but they only show movement near the doors. You can hear and speak through them, but only when you press a button to do so. Ours are set to human height, but will occasionally pick up flapping sheets on the line, swooping bats or (oddly) a cat. We can't see into anyone's gardens, and the speaker facility is only used when someone is delivering something and we are away, so we can ask them to put it somewhere genuinely safe, and not leave it on the doorstep. I wouldn't want my phone to be constantly picking up random conversations anyway.

I wouldn't like a neighbour's camera trained on our house or garden, and would ask them to adjust it if they did.

What brand is yours if it doesn’t pick up any noise?

Police knocked and asked to look at our camera. After half hour they found a young man who had been missing from home for a few days walking past.
It meant they were able to take other officers off checking cams in the vicinity and within half hour they had found his body. A tragedy, but it saved the family from yet another night of not knowing.
We were glad we could help, but it was upsetting as we saw the pictures of him walking past our house. Had I been in the garden I might have spoken to him as he passed by, but I didn’t get much sleep that night.

silverlining48

Police knocked and asked to look at our camera. After half hour they found a young man who had been missing from home for a few days walking past.
It meant they were able to take other officers off checking cams in the vicinity and within half hour they had found his body. A tragedy, but it saved the family from yet another night of not knowing.
We were glad we could help, but it was upsetting as we saw the pictures of him walking past our house. Had I been in the garden I might have spoken to him as he passed by, but I didn’t get much sleep that night.

How awful. Good yours helped the police & his family, to a point, get closure.

that's really sad silverlining I'm sorry

My son's neighbour installed a camera that followed you down the street,very creepy,you could hear it move, needless to say he was advised to remove it

Thanks, this was only a few weeks ago and I still think of him.

If we had neighbours who had them it wouldn’t worry me in the least.
I wish that one of them had had one a few weeks back when my dear friend/ next door neighbour was broken into 😥

Sensor lights can also be a nuisance. We have them in our back yard, and a neighbour has one in front, but they are not interfering with anyone, but a few years ago we lived opposite a house with a sensor light that was like a searchlight and kept going on every few minutes, we were in the front bedroom and even fairly substantial curtains couldn’t stop it lighting up our bedroom, it was like living next to a lighthouse. We mentioned it to our neighbour and he was quite dismissive, said they were making the neighbourhood safer, when I persevered he did admit he thought it was faulty and would try to fix it so it didn’t go on so often. He never did and eventually we moved to a less comfortable bedroom at the back of the house then we put it up for sale.

Our neighbour wants our cameras to cover his drive! Free security. Needless to say, we have not done this!!!

it should be illegal to film someone without their permission, especially on phones

Fallingstar

Sensor lights can also be a nuisance. We have them in our back yard, and a neighbour has one in front, but they are not interfering with anyone, but a few years ago we lived opposite a house with a sensor light that was like a searchlight and kept going on every few minutes, we were in the front bedroom and even fairly substantial curtains couldn’t stop it lighting up our bedroom, it was like living next to a lighthouse. We mentioned it to our neighbour and he was quite dismissive, said they were making the neighbourhood safer, when I persevered he did admit he thought it was faulty and would try to fix it so it didn’t go on so often. He never did and eventually we moved to a less comfortable bedroom at the back of the house then we put it up for sale.

We have had that with two neighbors back door. Had to knock on & let them know. Both were grateful as they hadn’t realised as they were positioned on a gable walls, both couldn’t see.