CCIV Concerns Addressed

Some of the legal profession are looking at the home CCTV systems and trying to get them regulated and this is causing much consternation and concern and much of it is to create fear and indoctrinate people into incorrectly thinking something and providing themselves with future ammunition for cases to be bought.

The law says you can record ANYTHING YOU CAN SEE FROM PUBLIC and by recording this is defined as video or moving pictures, audio, or stills pictures (photographs) so basically you can record private property from a public place if you can see it.

If there is a totally or predominantly public body or entity, such as jobcentres, public libraries, police stations, or even town halls you pay for them wholly or predominantly so they are PUBLIC places; many are now incorporated into multi function private sites and again this issue was addressed in 2023 when a ruling was made in the High Court. Basically this said if a public building is on private property and it has defined opening hours it becomes PUBLIC property during the opening or business hours as the public have access to their paid for property so if the public building has opening hours of 9-5 then from 9am to 5pm the property is public property, outside these hours it becomes private property.

What concerns have been raised about CCTV? Basically you have to register a private CCTV system with the Information Commissioner, but to actually register it with them you need a company name and number so if you are a private individual you cannot register your CCTV system with them anyway, but here is the issue, how do you use your CCTV system as this is the critical bit.

If you use it solely as a security system them fine as it is there solely for security and the issues come when you process the date and normally this would be copying the data and posting it online as you now become a data processor and data controller and you are sharing peoples private data online and while you don’t need their consent to do this, you do have to give then access to this data as this is a legal requirement under GDPR 2018 (General Data Protection Regulations). If you post funny clips on social media you are processing someone else’s data and they have the legal right to access the data, so what about all the television programmes? None of them would be allowed today and programmes such as Caught on Dashcam are allowed as the vehicles are on a public road and if you can see it from a public road you can record it, so they are within the law. If you watch these programmes you will notice many clips come from abroad and this is because they have different rules solely for their country.

Remember, you have no expectation of privacy in public and if you want privacy you have to create it.