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How do you feel about cameras on housing?

(9 Posts)
JaneJudge Sun 17-May-26 10:30:29

I have a doorbell with a camera (not ring) so I'm not completely innocent in all this but my neighbours at the back have a camera on their garage which I'm pretty sure can see into our lounge, so I close the curtains if we are sitting in there in an evening...

but now my next door neighbours have installed cameras at the back which they can obviously listen through as they are talking to one another through them whilst one is in the house and the other is in the back garden. Presumably they can listen to me and my family talking too?

I actually feel a bit violated, as though my privacy isn't being respected and I don't know if I am being unreasonable. Obviously I am quite boring so they wont be watching or listening to me anyway... who knows

I'm growing a tree in front of the garage camera

Graphite Sun 17-May-26 10:45:29

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.

BlessedArt Sun 17-May-26 11:20:09

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

Allira Sun 17-May-26 11:21:38

Is it a wildlife camera? Our neighbours have one.

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

ViceVersa Sun 17-May-26 11:31:11

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.

MT62 Sun 17-May-26 12:25:08

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 😳

Doodledog Sun 17-May-26 12:41:16

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.

Grannynannywanny Sun 17-May-26 12:56:31

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.

Missedout Sun 17-May-26 13:13:11

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.