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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be concerned about drone catching images of my children in paddling pool

404 replies

Slightlygiganticpants · 04/07/2018 10:12

Last night whilst my dc were playing in the garden, (which is completely private and in a rural location, we have about 3 neighbours) a drone flew over several times. The dc were playing in the paddling pool at this time in various states of undress.

My dh got the children in and I went in search of the drone operator. Located him and started filming him with my phone. He was on the other side of the river from my house. He disliked my filming of him and we became engaged in a fairly heated debate with me calling him a pervert and possibly a peadophileBlush. Apparently what he was doing was completely legal (I believe drone was less than 50 meters from us but that is up for debate) and he wasn't filming the dc. He did also phone the police after I left and then came around and spoke to my dh.

I have looked into this since and have found out that this is legal! How? Surely this can't be right? Surely we have a right to privacy in our own garden!

OP posts:
RebelRogue · 04/07/2018 17:45

This reply has been deleted

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RebelRogue · 04/07/2018 17:45

@Limpopobongo that's because they're your kids.

bastardkitty · 04/07/2018 17:46

So many ridiculous answers on this thread from people who are ignorant and deluded. You didn't over react. I liked this post:

If a drone flew over my garden I'd shoot it. Absolutely no need for one to be flying anywhere near the house - I can touch an air rifle from where I'm sitting right now, and it wouldn't take long to get the shotgun from the cabinet.

This is what I would do, if I had a shotgun or BB gun.

Original poster
Slightlygiganticpants · 04/07/2018 17:47

Yes but this isn't about filming in a public area or filming your own children at home! This is about a stranger filming your children in your private home! So I take it you would be ok with a stranger filming your children in the bath naked in your home without your permission? This wouldn't make you feel uncomfortable at all.

OP posts:
Confusssed · 04/07/2018 17:51

Sadly, very sadly, if this man was a paedophile he wouldn't bother taking distant images of children in a paddling pool. When with the click of a mouse he could access millions of horrendously explicit images of child porn in the comfort of his own home.

OP I think you're the sort who courts and enjoys dramatic scenes like this.

Original poster
Slightlygiganticpants · 04/07/2018 17:55

I am not comfortable being filmed on my own property without my permission. At no point did I state he was a paedophile I said that I called him one. I clearly ask if aibu to be concerned about this!

OP posts:
Original poster
Slightlygiganticpants · 04/07/2018 17:57

Anyone know of any legal drone jammer as they all seem to be illegal?

OP posts:
SharronNeedles · 04/07/2018 18:01

I don't understand how you know he wasn't filming you.
The camera doesn't necessarily point down so it could have been facing straight ahead. From the sound of it, you live in a lovely area, so maybe he was filming the views and from above your house happened to be a good shot?
Also, as people have mentioned, he wouldn't have know what your children were wearing when he flew the drone over as it doesn't exactly live stream onto a handheld device. He wouldn't have even known your children were in the garden. Would he even know you had children? So it's not quite the same as someone stood outside the bathroom window with a camcorder.

MotsDHeureGoussesRames · 04/07/2018 18:02

I think your reaction was way over the top, OP and you created a massive drama. Perhaps first asking him to stop flying his drone over your garden before launching into an attack and filming him might have been prudent.

That being said, I absolutely HATE drones and think they shouldn't be allowed to film over private property. In fact, I don't think people should be able to own the camera ones for personal use. There is just too much scope for misuse. Even people without malicious intent might not be able to help themselves from having a good nosy if they spot something 'interesting' going on in a private location. They are one thing that really makes me feel invaded and uncomfortable. We had one over the houses where we live the other day. It hung around for a minute or so, hovering to the left of my property and then flew fast off in the direction it had come from. Nothing sinister there but I still hugely resent the intrusion. Not ok in my opinion.

blueskypink · 04/07/2018 18:17

I could stand with a video cam in any high street in the UK and film and it would be legal. I could film on the beach and it would be legal.

If you were obviously filming friends/relatives yes. If you were filming strangers, particularly children, you'd undoubtedly be asked what the hell you think you are doing. I don't think the police would be too impressed either.

glintandglide · 04/07/2018 18:25

Confusssed with al due respect, you don’t know much about paedophiles

BarbaraofSevillle · 04/07/2018 18:56

I don't know any criminal that uses a loud large buzzing arial device to plan a burglary

Well they use them to drop contraband into prisons, so the buzzing doesn't put them off then. Quite popular amongst criminals, drones are.

Limpopobongo · 04/07/2018 19:05

If you were obviously filming friends/relatives yes. If you were filming strangers, particularly children, you'd undoubtedly be asked what the hell you think you are doing. I don't think the police would be too impressed either.

Whether the Police are impressed or not is of no consequence. The Police do not make the law. They have to be fairly certain that a crime is or has been committed, then they make inquiries to enforce that and if they believe they have a case they can arrest,seek to charge,consult with CPS etc.

Whilst this is all going on, am still innocent.

Failingat40 · 04/07/2018 19:06

Yanbu.

I think if this invasion of privacy happened to me while young kids were playing undressed or even dressed I'd feel threatened and want to lash out too.

Why didn't you phone the police?

They would probably have taken it seriously and checked the guy out fully and had the footage on the drone checked.

I would not take anything the man said to be gospel, especially about him actually phoning the police. People say things to throw up a smoke screen.

Limpopobongo · 04/07/2018 19:07

A drone in the air does not a pervert make. They fly high, they may or may not have a camera, we have no idea what the camera was looking at. From a high position it could have been looking at a few square miles !

My eyes are also cameras. I go out every day and see things. There is nothing i can do about it. If i see something, i cant then unsee it.

Buster72 · 04/07/2018 19:10

@blueskypink

Wrong you can stand in the high street and take any photo/ video of any person you please....

pigsDOfly · 04/07/2018 19:26

I'm still wondering how he would have known the children were semi naked at that time in that garden beforehand so he knew to turn up with his drone to film them.

Do you know OP, where he obtain that information from in order to be, from his point of view, in the right place at the right time?

Or maybe he was just flying his annoying drone in order to look at the wide open spaces. Hard to know really.

Xenia · 04/07/2018 19:39

Let us not forget that policeman who used the police helicopter to film a woman and her 2 adult daughters sunbathing. he was in the papers last year. There is far too much of this about. We ought to have an expectation of privacy in our own back gardens.

For me it is nothing about nudity as suich but privacy. My neighbour (female!) stood at my gate when I was heavily mowing my acre and moved her body up and down mimicing my breasts moving up (in a T shirt by the way and a bra ) and down and laughed - weirdo OAP lady I thought but just smiled sweetly. None of her business what I wear in my garden, what I look like and that unlike her (she never mows, her husband does it) I do my own garden

frankiestein401 · 04/07/2018 19:44

if the punter was out of visual contact with the drone he had to be using a live camera feed / gps feed to fly it.

if he then flies it more than twice (out and back) over an enclosed yard its because hes looking at something.

if the yard is enclosed as the op describes then she has a reasonable expectation of privacy and the use of a camera in this way ought to equate to voyeurism - suspect he never called the police.

i'd invest in a catapult and bring the thing down from behind.

glintandglide · 04/07/2018 19:57

I don’t really understand whats so puzzling about it pigs.

Maybe he was walking around on a hot day looking for children to look at

Maybe he knew the OPs large isolated house contained children. Maybe he watches them

Maybe he was on his way to do some fishing in the river and heard the children and thought oh lovely I’ll get my drone out and take a closer look....

There are loads of possibilities. We won’t know what happened in reality but it’s not that hard to imagine

SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires · 04/07/2018 20:03

OP Please just touch with the police, then leave it their hands.

SteamTrainsRealAleandOpenFires · 04/07/2018 20:03

get in*

SaucyJack · 04/07/2018 20:09

Maybe he was actually hoping to get a good butchers at the OP in her bikini bottoms, and he's only so pissed off because he's now realised he's got a four year in her Elsa swimsuit.

Who knows? But what I do know is that if you're offended by being accused of acting like a dirty perv, then it's probably best not to film people in their back garden in the first place.

It's an easily avoidable "misunderstanding".

user1485342611 · 04/07/2018 20:16

I don't think he has to be a pervert for this behaviour to be considered intrusive and not acceptable. Maybe if more people went ballistic at these annoying idiots they would think on and stop being so rude and intimidating in the name of their 'hobby'. As someone else suggested take up stamp collecting or something and get out of people's faces.

brizzledrizzle · 04/07/2018 20:21

If you were filming strangers, particularly children, you'd undoubtedly be asked what the hell you think you are doing. I don't think the police would be too impressed either.

I doubt the police would concern themselves one way or another since it's legal to do that.

As for drones - www.prettys.co.uk/drones-and-the-law
If your drone is capable of undertaking surveillance or collecting data – most likely because it has a camera – you must not fly the drone:
over or within 150 metres of any congested area, defined as any area of a city, town or settlement which is substantially used for residential, industrial, commercial or recreational purposes”;
over or within 150 metres of an organised open-air assembly of more than 1,000 persons; or
within 50 metres of any vessel, vehicle, structure or person not under your control.

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