Positioning of neighbour's camera

[PearlHeart3]

Hi all,

I just wanted to get a general consensus before I approach the neighbour and ask what/why they are recording.

I noticed today my neighbour has set up a camera in his daughters' upstairs bedroom, pointing out of the window and onto both of our (rear) gardens. The rear of our properties are identical (but mirrored) and an L shape, so the camera is pointing down the alley way of our gardens (separated by a fence) and as I don't have any trees, he can see into the majority of my garden. I honestly don't know what he could be filming inside his garden because most of it is trees and bushes, and I'm worried he's now filming me (and my family)? I often hang the washing out in my nightie and I'm conscious he'll film this in future. It's made me feel really uncomfortable. It's not a proper outdoor cctv camera, more like an indoor one and it's located on the inside of his house looking out through the window.

Unrelated but pertinent, he set up a camera in his upstairs master bedroom overlooking the front garden last year. I'm not so upset about this although he must be filming a good portion of our street (including whenever I leave the house). I originally thought he set the front one up because he had so many postal deliveries last year (annoying and deserves a thread of its own) and maybe he had problems with items going missing as neighbours had started refusing to take in packages for him.

Am I being unreasonable to ask him what the rear camera is for? Or shall I just ignore it?

For the sake of clarity, I have a ring doorbell set up which only films when there is movement within my front garden or the doorbell is pressed/door is knocked. But I have a sign up notifying visitors they are being recorded. He doesn't have a sign up and he's never mentioned he was going to set anything up either.

Ring local police station for advice. My ndn put cctv up but had the courtesy to tell us.

If its pointed at the trees he could be filming the local wildlife.

I would assume he's filming the alleyway for security reasons? He should have spoken to you first hower.

You say there is an alleyway between the gardens. Maybe he is just concerned about security and potential intruders using the alleyway?

It does sound like a bit of an intrusion though. If he is genuinely concerned about security he would be better to get a specialist firm to set up a proper outdoor CCTV that only covered his property and the alleyway

If its pointed at the trees he could be filming the local wildlife.

Oh crikey I should have thought of this! I set up a trail camera in my own garden every evening for this very purpose. Mind you my camera is firmly trained on one particular corner of our garden and nowhere else.
(Hedgehog corner )

I was going to say wildlife too. I wonder if it's something his daughter enjoys.
Get dressed to shoes, great way to start your day, then you don't have to go out in your nightie. Getting colder now anyway.

Hi, just to clarify, it's not an alleyway as such. It's just the long part of the L shaped garden. I've drawn a quick sketch.

I don't think it's wildlife related. They barely use their garden as it is and he gets someone in to cut his trees back once a year, so he's hardly the green fingered/wildlife type.

It could be the daughters I suppose (both secondary school age) but not sure why they'd want to film it anyway. It's really not much of a view.

I thought it was illegal to film people without their consent on their own property?

Honestly? I think you're overthinking this. People are putting in CCTV left right and centre at the moment. A lot of places have seen a spate of burglaries during COVID - my friends recently had a bike nicked from their shed in a very similarly setup house. See it as extra security. And put some clothes on when you go to the washing line. :)

Have you spoken to him?

We live on a terraced road, no gardens and a row of houses facing ours.we have CCTV. Told neighbors and showed the screen they were happy with what was filmed and one asked if we could move slightly to cover their car/house. Which we did.

Anyway neighbors moved out, new ones moved in and straight away came shouting that we were perverts looking in their windows (CCTV didn't look in Windows)...got off on a bad foot and never recovered. Whereas if they had just asked we would have explained about previous neighbor wanting the house covered, and would have gladly shown the footage.

Anyway moral of the story.... Maybe speak to neighbor and ask. If not the police can come and request to see their footage.

No, it doesn't break the law itself but comes with certain obligations... or there are lawas being broken!

Put

cctv cover neighbours property

into google and you'll get the parliament document on it. Drop him a copy and ask him to comply with the GDPR obligations. They are VERY clearly spelled out at the very beginning of the document! If he ignores you report him to the police and ICO, let him work his way through that quagmire!

There have been a few threads about this kind of thing recently, consensus being that even if the camera is pointing into one of your rooms, the most you can do is ask for bits of his screen view to be blacked out.
I'd be happy tbh, extra security onto the garden area. From the diagram it seems fairly obvious why he's done it.
Ask him to show you exactly what he sees if you're bothered and if you don't like it still ask him to block what he sees of your garden from his screen. It's easy to do.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/ninety_days_only/3968496-Privacy-laws-CCTV

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3982230-neighbour-put-up-cctv-camera-that-looks-into-our-garden

Seems a bit of a grey area.