Neighbour installing CCTV - my legal position?

[elephantseal]

I had to call the police on a neighbour this week, and he has just sent me and other neighbours saying he will be installing CCTV on his property.

What is our legal position? I've done some googling, but I don't trust him to keep the cctv to his property - I can imagine it covering our garden, the pavement, our drive - how can we ensure this is not the case? We're not on good terms with him, btw. He's a shouty bully.

What is the background to all of this? Why did you call the police on him. It is his right if he wants to install ctv on his property but as far as covering your garden/drive I am not so sure.

Ask to check or ask for a PCSO to come and check.

He shouldn’t cover your property without permission however unfortunately unless you check pretty much every day you’ll never no if he slightly moved it and his perfectly allowed to have cctv in general covering his property and most people also cover some public land which tends to be much appreciated by the police so they wouldn’t stop that bit either.

The fact his emailed you all is actually rather nice I don’t know if anyone who tends to make the street aware we/they just put it up.

May you could put something up on your land which blocks the line of sight of his cameras so he just had a picture of a huge extended high fence panel you add on top of your fence. The recent Ring door bell case found in that case the cameras recorded much more than just the drive of the person's house and were illegal.

Wasn’t that the case where they where recoding audio and Video of someone’s back garden? A space where you expect privacy.

Check out the ICO for domestic cctv and all relevant information is on their website.

Essentially, he cannot cover your garden. Your drive can be caught on the periphery along with any public pathways but he has to abide by DPA and GDPR regulations.

He is not supposed to have the camera showing any private land, so your garden and house but like @OhmygodDont says, that’s hard to prove that he hasn’t.

Anybody can film or photograph anyone on public land. So the pavement and road in this situation.

I would write him a note back saying, yes

Dear neighbour, thanks for your note, understand that you would like CCTV to cover your property, could you please confirm to me that it will not be covering my garden or the main part of my driveway, as I understand it, the CCTV can be set up to exclude neighbours' private areas. Thanks, OP.

His letter mentioned GDPR and the DPA. I'm most concerned with the back garden coverage. If cctv covers our boundary then surely it will include some of our garden. Maybe depends where it will be fitted - how high up his house. If it's fairly low then it shouldn't be able to see over our garden fence...

His not allowed to look over your fence it can be angled or blacked out but it can see the fence itself. The fact he mentions data protection etc sounds like his going to be doing it all above board. I wouldn’t worry.

We have cctv in our back garden and our installer did something to the settings so that we just have a black area on the screen where our neighbours gardens would be. So we can see our hedge, but nothing beyond that. Perhaps ask to check his images and ensure this is done for you too?

Many cameras' field of vision can be adjusted to blank out areas.

Here’s an example someone used in their blink so the blocked out bits although random in this photo show zones it doesn’t record or even view.

This sounds sensible! Will do, thank you.

The thing is if you check today, it can be changed tomorrow or 5 secs after you go home

What did the police say when you called?

My next door but one neighbour has cctv. It goes as far as pavement in front of my house.
He sent me his coverage of the man who took it on himself to break my drivers door window on my car while I was on holiday. He's now being prosecuted for this and 7 other offences.

That's what I'm worried about. I don't trust him.

That would be handy, but I don't believe neighbour would be helpful like this.

Why did you call the police on him?

Why did you call the police on him ? depending on the circumstances I doubt he will be happy to invite you into his home to check the images if you had to resort to that.

I called the police for DV - he was shouting at his wife and dc. Horrible. Not the first time.