On the drive between the hotel and the concert site, I kept my eyes open for these, and they were on every street. I’d say about ten percent of front doors.
I’ve never seen one in Sweden.
It seems like such an obvious infringement of consent to me - pointing a camera into the street that films everything it sees, 24/7. Like, what gives you the right?
I really noticed it when I moved away - for the first week or so I could sense this difference, and then eventually I realised it was that every vantage point wasn’t bristling with cameras.
I’m sure it isn’t a uniquely British culture, but it isn’t universal either.
Definitely used to be the case. The nation of If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong You Have Nothing to Worry About.
But then the idea of having national IDs, like basically all other European nations, is seen as a vast infringement of civil liberties. It’s so odd.
I was a teenager during the Blair years and I remember it being a big topic of political conversation (that I was quite animated by now). The idea that you’re constantly on camera in the UK even being questioned seems very old fashioned now.
Against the law in Sweden, too
I once suggested an *inside* our apartment camera for vacation time and my partner’s first thought was “I don’t know if that’s legal”
I can't remember if it was screenshots from Nextdoor or in the local Facebook group but there was definitely a thing where shots of a guy casing houses on the street at the same time each day were posted until the fella himself chimed in to say he caught the same train to work every morning.
Some of them share what they film with Amazon servers, and that feels like a real GDPR problem. Google got into trouble with stills taken from the street turning up on maps later; real-time pushing of people without consent seems... very off
Legally speaking it’s the same right that lets you take a photo on the street. Not saying it’s right or appropriate but it’s where the law sits. That said deliberately pointing it to film into a property that’s not yours is considered harassment.
In cases like that, the council with the help of the police can enforce removal or at least redirecting the camera so it’s not targeting someone. Streets however are viewed as public spaces and you can film them whenever you want.
Here in the states, I'd say it's about 25% of the houses have door cameras, and the cool thing is, Ring or Google home will automatically give the cops your video without notifying you if the cops should moly ask for all the footage from a specific street or area
We bought one recently, because the same companies that play fast and loose with your personal data already make having my phone notify me the delivery driver has dropped and ran without so much as a knock the only way I’m getting that parcel, rather than a random passer-by who sees a laptop box.
