Scottish Court Awards Damages For CCTV Camera Pointed At Neighbor's House (boingboing.net) 96
AmiMoJo quotes a report from BoingBoing: Edinburgh's Nahid Akram installed a CCTV system that let him record his downstairs neighbors Debbie and Tony Woolley in their back garden, capturing both images and audio of their private conversations, with a system that had the capacity to record continuously for five days. A Scottish court has ruled that the distress caused by their neighbor's camera entitled the Woolleys to $21,000 (17,000 British Pounds) in damages, without the need for them to demonstrate any actual financial loss. The judgment builds on a 2015 English court ruling against Google for spying on logged out Safari users, where the users were not required to show financial losses to receive compensation for private surveillance.
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It was right there, what am I supposed to do, look away?
Get off my screen.
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The dead are truly peaceful.
do I understand it right? (Score:1, Interesting)
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Re: do I understand it right? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: do I understand it right? (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember a story on the news about this years ago. Some camera operators perving through the window of some young woman's bedroom. They had the black boxes covering it, but found that if they just rotated the camera to the left a little the boxes stayed in place on screen and the window slid out from under them.
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Read the actual court decision.
The two parties each own part of a building, one on the upper and the other on the lower floor. Additionally, the two parties were hostile to each other. The judgement here is unlikely to apply to your imagined scenario.
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If CCTV cam now records any part of someone's property its autowin in court? .
No, that's a stupid interpretation. UK courts have regularly been much less tolerant of audio recordings, which rarely have a legitimate use without a warrant.
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What about lip reading? With HD cameras that's possible these days, can even be automated with machine vision.
Re:do I understand it right? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a few laws about recording conversations without consent.
Re: do I understand it right? (Score:1)
In the UK, you need to get planning permission to install a CCTV system, even if it is inside your windows. There is a case where a disabled man with a mobility scooter kept having it stolen by "yoofs". As a deteerent to prevent this happening, he had a CCTV system installed. It had the desired effect. Then the council jobsworths demanded that the system be deactivated because he did not get planning permission. His property was vandalized that night.
Re: do I understand it right? (Score:1, Informative)
No you do not need planning permission you idiot,the case you mention was a council property and he had failed to ask their permission to fix his cameras to their walls etc,totally different from needing planning permission..
If you bother to look,you will find that you need the councils permission to even change wallpaper or paint colour if you are a council tenant,most are not that extreme and have more than enough to do already,but they can bill you for works under taken to return a house or flat to their
Re: do I understand it right? (Score:5, Informative)
The law in this area is still developing in most places, including the UK, as we try to find a reasonable balance between the benefits of new technologies and their ability to infringe privacy in ways that weren't possible before.
As for the ethics and what direction the laws ought to go in, I suggest that a sensible starting point is:
1. If you're just observing activity on private property that any member of the public might observe incidentally while going about their ordinary business, that's probably OK.
2. If you're using technology to observe activity on private property that would not be observed by an ordinary member of the public without unusual behaviour or the use of artificial aids, that might be a problem.
3. If you're recording anything that is happening on private property, that might be a problem.
For example, walking down the street and noticing that someone is in because their light is on and their window is uncovered: fine, anyone walking past would see the same thing. The other person can close their curtains if they want privacy and can reasonably be expected to know that someone walking past would see inside.
Hearing unfortunate personal details because a couple are having a screaming argument in their back yard and the sound carries out to the street where you're walking: also fine, on a similar basis.
However, walking right up to someone's house and looking through a small gap in someone's curtains and see what's happening inside: not OK, this is obviously intrusive and not something most people would expect or think was acceptable behaviour.
Using things like thermal cameras or long-range mics to look or listen inside a private home from across the street: not OK for the same reasons.
Monitoring unencrypted WiFi: a tricky area. On the one hand, the signals are being sent outside someone's private property by their own actions, just like leaving the curtains open or screaming in the back yard. It's hardly fair to blame someone who observes the results incidentally while doing normal things like setting up their own WiFi. On the other hand, an ordinary person wouldn't necessarily understand the implications of everyday technology or what they were exposing. However, someone who was deliberately connecting to and monitoring or recording data from someone else's network probably does understand the implications, and is morally little better than a peeping Tom at the window.
Re:do I understand it right? (Score:5, Informative)
do I understand it right?
You give no indication that you do.
If CCTV cam now records any part of someone's property its autowin in court?
That would seem unlikely. What gave you that idea?
Did someone think to sue State of London for all those cameras around?
Is the City of London operating "all those cameras" in contravention of the Act?
One or two are bound to record someone's property.
And ...?
In the event this case rested on the failure of the defendant "in her duties as data controller": in the first instance by her failure to become registered as such; and also in "breach[ing] her duty to comply with the data protection principles" under the Data Protection Act 1998. One suspects however, given the dramatic negative impact of defendant's action on plaintiffs' "use and enjoyment of their own home" that plaintiffs could also have succeeded under nuisance.
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Did someone think to sue State of London for all those cameras around?
Is the City of London operating "all those cameras" in contravention of the Act?
A better question is, are the governments of London operating all of those cameras? How many are private?
The oft-quoted number of eleventy bajillion cameras in London almost always include private CCTV cameras (which are in almost every country these days). Only a fraction of them are government owned.
Also, the City of London is a 3 KM square stretch of central London. There are 32 other administrative regions (boroughs) in London, each will run their own sets of CCTV which will make a smaller fractio
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I thought that Europeans can't achieve orgasm without being under constant CCTV surveillance? Obviously this guy is new there.
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No you don't. (Score:2)
You aren't understanding anything right. The UK legal system is based on reasonable expectations. Someone's backward provides the person a reasonable expectation of privacy. The neighbour violated that.
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It's you.
Re: do I understand it right? (Score:2)
What's State of London?
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1. City of London
2. London is in England, and this court decision was in Scotland. Scottish law doesn't apply in England.
So no.
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17,000 GBP in distress? (Score:1)
Did the camera set their house on fire?
collecting bounced light particles (Score:1)
That's all this guy did. Once those particles exited the garden, they were for anyone to collect. If the couple wanted exclusive use of those light particles, they should have done something to prevent them leaving their garden.
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"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
-- Abraham Maslow
That's all this guy did.
Which guy? Do you mean Ms Akram?
Once those particles exited the garden, they were for anyone to collect.
Not lawfully, no. And if you are going to behave unlawfully, why wait till they exit the garden? For that matter why not break in and steal all the silver that is there "for anyone to collect" (unlawfully)?
If the couple wanted exclusive use of those light particles
The couple were not here engaged in physics research where the construct "light particles" might productively
1984 is not a utopia (Score:2, Insightful)
Did the camera set their house on fire?
For years now they could not go outside without being monitored. For years they could not hold a private conversation either inside or outside the house. If you don't think that would cause distress, 1984 must be your idea of a really good time.
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You're probably an optimistic person if you don't think this isn't already happening to you.
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Good luck with your battle, but I don't see how it can be won.
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Why? What magical power do you think is routinely listening in to everyone's private conversations inside their own homes?
There have certainly been technologies developed that could do such things, including phones, microphones on computers, and devices like "smart" TVs and gaming consoles. However, if anyone actually was routinely listening in using those sensors and transmitting the data somewhere else, it would be a significant privacy issue and potentially an expensive mistake in legal and/or PR terms (
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Other than Amazon, Google, individuals that have compromised your laptop, computer, phone or voice actived IoT device? Probably not the government, unless you've done something to get on their radar.
Google is at least nice enough to let you view the logs of everything they've recorded. And currently you can delete them, until the terms of service change.
A lot of privacy laws in the world, including many states in the US, apply primarily to government agencies. While laws usually aren't nearly as strict for
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You're being paranoid. The likes of Amazon and Google aren't routinely recording everything you say and uploading it to the mothership. For a start, that would almost certainly be illegal in some places, and in any case they'd be discovered very quickly given the amount of data involved. We should certainly be aware of the risks with these modern devices that have both sensors and communications capabilities, and I think both the security of the devices and consideration for their privacy in normal operatio
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You can literally go onto your Google account and play back hundreds of recordings that it has taken with your phone. Then erase them if you so choose.
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Details please.
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Google -> My Account -> Go to Activity Controls -> Voice & Audio Activity -> Manage Activity
If you have it turned off (PAUSE), then you should have nothing listed (I hope). If you turn it on, you'll start accumulating data there and you can delete stuff. What happens is it normally wants to note activity of you using the "OK Google" service, but it will log a lot of false positives.
I find bits of conversations with wife, meetings at work, other people at the bar, and more. Theoretically I ha
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So just to be clear, you're not actually saying that Google are routinely listening in to everyone's surroundings, you're saying that an optional voice-activated feature on Android devices sometimes has false positives on the trigger word if it's enabled and in those cases it may record a short part of the audio around the phone and send it back to Google the same as it would if you were actually intending to use the voice-activated feature? I think it's fair to say that one of these is quite different to t
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I'm saying that they have the capability of doing it. And many people are being recorded without knowing it.
Theoretically Google's privacy agreement prevents them from doing it without your permission. But if they went ahead anywhere there would not be any major consequences, and the easiest would be to update the agreement to allow exceptions.
The agreement makes it clear that the recorders do turn into data for Google. Theoretically they took steps to anonymize the recordings, but the next time you see an
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Privacy invasions into your home, your most private space, are treated pretty harshly. Depriving people of that privacy for an extended period of time is going to rack up big costs. Data Protection laws are designed that way to prevent companies from violating privacy for profit and simply absorbing the fines like any other cost.
The cameras to the front of the house record every person approaching the pursuersâ(TM) home. The cameras to the rear were set deliberately to record footage of the pursuersâ(TM) private garden area. There was no legitimate reason for the nature and extent of such video coverage.
Mr Akram, on one occasion, taunted the pursuers about his ability to listen to them as the pursuers conversed in their garden.
Two audio boxes were installed immediately below front bedroom windows.
IF only... (Score:3)
The same logic applied to Government installed cameras.. Oh no, this only applies to "private" ones..
Re: IF only... (Score:3, Informative)
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Of course it does. If the government put a CCTV camera up specifically to watch you in your garden they would need something called a warrant.
that was the only system they found (Score:2)
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Why does everyone stop looking at three?
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but (Score:1)
I will check again later,but at the moment I can find nothing about why he had such a system fitted..
I can see this case causing all sorts of problems here in the UK because we supposedly have the highest density of cctv systems in the world,many,many people fit them to their homes for security,some insurance companies give a discount if a property is coveted by a decent quality system..
Wether this case is going to be used to set a precedent in the UK as a whole is very difficult to say,as the Scottish and
Re:but (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.edinburghnews.scots... [scotsman.com]
She (Nahid) wanted to change the property use from a guest house to a bail hostel, the neighbors (Woolleys) opposed it, so the city agreed not to change property usage.
It seems the cameras were a fuck you to the Woolleys.
Two of the audio boxes were situated immediately below the Woolleysâ(TM) front bedroom âwindows and they feared conversations inside their home were also being recorded.
Sheriff Ross said Nahid Akramâ(TM)s husband Sohail, who was manager of the Murrayfield Park Guest House, taunted the Woolleys about his ability to listen to them by âoeputting his hand to his ear to mime listening to their conversationâ,
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Short term solution:
1. Pink noise generator, through a parabolic reflector aimed at the camera (microphone)
2. Small laser pointer aimed at the camera lens, or if that's a problem legally, a small array of superbright LEDs facing the lens - use some on white, and a few on red, green, and blue.
Longer term:
Call the authorities at the slightest hint of a breach of regulations. Pay for a friend to stay at the guest house and take notes of any code violations - health, building, electrical, etc, then hand that ov
Re:but (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or just send the cunts back to Pakistan.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see how this is anything other than a good thing.
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy on ones own property, and this was recording sound, not just video footage.
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>"There is a reasonable expectation of privacy on ones own property, and this was recording sound, not just video footage."
Is there? So you think the many the thousands and thousands of government-owned cameras never include ANY private property in their views? I think this is more about audio than anything else.
Don't get me wrong, I think the UK has gone WAY overboard with surveillance, and the USA is headed down the same path.
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That which could be potentially observed or heard by a person standing in a public space such as a sidewalk is usually presumed to be completely unprotected. So, yes, you do not have privacy in your living room if the front of your house is near the sidewalk and you choose to keep the curtains open.
There is some ambiguity about technology like parabolic dish mikes, telephoto lenses, and infrared cameras, used from public locations to delve into private property in a manner that was implausible for a physic
How Times Change (Score:4, Informative)
"Mah hobby is secretly videotaping couples in cars. I dinna come forward because in this country, it makes you look like a pervert—but every single Scottish person does it!" - Groundskeeper Willie
Legal Boundaries (Score:1)
Stupid (Score:2)
Fighting technology is pointless (Score:2)
Cameras and microphones will continue to become more sensitive and miniaturized. You have to assume that you may be recorded and will not be able to detect that. Technology also provides ways to increase privacy though, for example use your phone to send a message to a thousand people around the world without anyone else being able to see the message or the fact of a large gathering. You may not like it, but the world does not stand still.
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You may not like it, but the world does not stand still.
The world has never stood still, but there have also always been things we could do but accepted that we shouldn't. That principle is behind everything from common decency and good manners to statutory protections and penalties for illegal acts.
There is nothing different about improving surveillance technology, and there is no reason we should just accept that using modern technology to intrude into our everyday lives is or should be acceptable either ethically or legally merely because the technical capabi
Why Dollars? (Score:1)
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Dead right. Instead of converting it to dollars they should describe it in terms of football fields.