Bad neighbours and cctv question

Gareth Crossman is obviously woefully ignorant of the DPA. Private domestic use is *not* required to comply with the DPA.

That's a different aspect altogether. CCTV camera footage is evidence

- and like any other evidence is may be challenged in court. I would suggest that in most cases it would be difficult to challenge the image itself, but the time and date it was taken could be contested, and suggestions could be made that there was activity going on off-camera that provided an innocent explanation to what is seen on the video.

A CCTV camera pointed at a neighbour's property could also be seen by the neighbour as harrassment, which could result in the police demanding it be removed or pointed in a different direction.

Complete nonsense. They may cover anything you like apart from specifically restricted areas (e.g. military installations etc.), so long as it is not for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.

OK, it seems that the ICO have recently issued new guidance, and they do now accept the above to be correct.

I was basing the above on their previous guidance (but issued after the court case showing that in most cases individuals did not need to register).

I didn't think they would change it further without another court case, although I'm glad to have been proved wrong.

In message , Cynic writes

panning permission, on the other hand ...

Maybe HM Governemnt could ammend the act such that before any corporate representative refers to if they much first actually have read it.

It might be argued that filiming somone elses private property is outside this exemption in the act, but you'd need to actually convince a judge.

Whereas there are specific rules when it comes to the Police presenting evidence AFAIK these only apply to the police. In effect there are additional ways in which evidence presented by the Police (or those acting on their behalf) can be challenged in court.

Which has nothing to do with the DPA and is not applicable to filiming public property.

Maplins sell the Swann brand of CCTV equipment. Beware the cameras. They look impressive but are faitly useless quality at any sort of range. For example, number plates in a car park are unrecognizable. The spec may be high, but the lenses are crap.

Turk182

Only a business needs to do that, not a member of the public, although the police once hinted to a friend that he did, because they wanted to know where the camera were, so that they didn'r get caught out!

The information from this link has been stolen!

Even if something is prohibited it does not follow that it is prohibited by a specific law. e.g. filimg someone on someone else's (including their own) property is far more likely to be an issue under "anti-stalking" or "Human Rights" laws.

Some people appear to beileve otherwise. Or does it matter if this involves a business or residential property? (What if the property in question is actually both?)

Hello,

Just a thought for you. Available on the market today are a number of cameras that have the ability to pan, tilt and zoom. If the camera is not set to view one area all the time it would not be classed as a static camera. Most of the concerns arise from static cameras as people see them aimed at one spot and automatically assume,

You have a number of options available to you. There is a very cheap, 2 x camera system available from Maplins that you can use with an old VCR or DVD recorder. I believe it is only capable of a black and white image but the quality of the image is quite ample.

Anthony Birch

No, the law is perfectly clear on this issue - a private individual may put up CCTV cameras on domestic property that point wherever he wants, whether his own property, public property or his neighbour's property. A neighbour *could* complain that it constitutes harassment and that would need to be judged on its own merit based on the exact circumstances - but you could not be charged with an offence unless you failed to move the camera after you had been told that it was causing harassment.

If the camera were sited such that it captured images of people undressing in a place that they reasonably expected to be private,

And obviously if you live opposite a military base, airport or other sensitive installation, there may be restrictions regarding photographing such places.

Er, if someone is charged with harassment it's because it's prohibited by the Protection from Harassment Act. The Human Rights act only applies to public bodies.

Also, I've found the outdoor ones not to be very waterproof, although designed as such. Also, the interlaced scan makes rather a mess of moving images if you want to collect stills from them. (I did spend some time with photoshop sliding the alterate scan lines together enough for the police to recognise a suspect already known to them, but that would have been no good as evidence.)