CCTV of swimming pool playing in cafe

[Imdunfer]

Looking for advice on whether it would be rational to make a formal complaint about this.

The gym I use has just started playing the live CCTV feed of the swimming pool area into the cafe.

I'm very unhappy about being watched in my swimming costume by people I can't see watching me, but also there are children's swimming lessons going on in the pool as well and that feels like a safeguarding issue.

I've talked to the guy manning the desk and he brushed it off.

UABU - you are being unreasonable, there's nothing wrong with people you can't see being able to watch you and little children in wet swimming costumes.

UANBU - make a formal complaint

Perhaps to balance things up, they should install a large screen in the pool area and provide a live stream of people in the cafe eating meat pies and cream cakes - as a sort of inducement to visit the cafe after one's healthy swim?

You’re obviously worried about this. What is your actual fear of what might happen? Sometimes it helps to write it out and read it back objectively.

Are you worried someone will watch you in a creepy way and then approach you afterwards and seem nice but you don’t know they’re not because you don’t know they’ve been watching you?

Ask the management if they can switch off the café screen when no lessons are on.
Our gym has this, to encourage parents to use the cafe, but the screen is only switched on when kids classes are in progress.

I'm with you, I hate being watched on CCTV - in all honesty I'd probably stroll in casually and switch the screen off myself before I went swimming

You’re not wrong. Look up GDPR and CCTV and approach it from that perspective with the gym. Seems to me they don’t have a clear legitimate reason for screening it in the seating area.

@ImdunferI’m sorry but I can’t see the problem? It’s peculiar to want to watch someone watching you. Who cares if someone is watching you? Is it going to harm you and / or alter your behaviour?

It seems like it’s been done to allow parents to watch their children. If your worry is people using it to watch children / adults for other “nefarious” reasons I think your concern is misplaced. In today’s online world, I’m sure there’s sadly much easier ways for them to get access to want they want from the comfort of their own home rather than the dingy darkened cafe of your description

I don't think I'm unusual in not liking being watched when I'm in a vulnerable position.

I’m fat and hideous in a swimming costume, so I don’t like people watching me, however this wouldn’t bother me at all.
If anyone’s really that interested in watching people in the pool, surely they’d get into the actual pool area themselves? And how clear are the camera images? I’m betting they’re not particularly zoomed in or high definition.
If it’s a private gym then it’s unlikely anyone would pay membership just so they can sit in a dingy room looking at CCTV pictures of random, not necessarily attractive, people in a swimming pool!

Neither do I but people dislike it because they’re concerned about something. I’m just suggesting you maybe spin that through in your mind and work out what it is that you’re afraid might happen.

Most pools I’ve been too are actually overlooked by the cafe.

in your case it’s probably been installed to get the parents off the poolside and into the cafe.

YABU

This is not a safeguarding issue. I'm fed up of people thinking they can use that word as some sort of trump card.

You are suggesting it might be a safeguarding issue because you don't like people seeing you in your swimming costume.

If you don't like people you don't know seeing you in a wet swimming costume, don't go swimming with the general public.

I'm not afraid of anything happening for myself, I just don't like it. I'm not sure anyone should be being fed a live stream of the tinies to watch from the back of a dark room, though. Much as people would not want to see a random bloke watching an infant school playground.

If you think you're vulnerable , give the pool a miss , and don't use it after weight training . It isn't really worth it because of the way you think .

Hence why I started this thread. Thanks for your input.

The same men could be in the pool themselves, looking at you in your wet swimsuit, though.

I have never suggested that I feel vulnerable. I've made it clear that I just don't like it. I don't think it's appropriate, given the setting.

Exactly. I doubt if any of the other people are remotely interested in you anyway.

If you value the gym, pool and spa facilities you will, as you say, have to put up with it.

I can see them. It makes a lot of difference.

How? I don't understand

Thank goodness you didn’t phrase your AIBU alternatives in any kind of loaded way that might give you an opening to have a go at anyone who disagrees with you.

I can sort of see your point, in that I deliberately choose times to use my gym swimming pool when I know there will be very few people there, because I'm somewhat large and don't feel a pretty sight in my costume. It's the only form of exercise I enjoy so my best hope of becoming less large. I wouldn't want to think of people sitting in the cafe possibly laughing at the hippo in the pool, and I doubt that most people in the cafe want to see me anyway.

But I'm a bit puzzled that you go through all the faff of getting into a swimming costume if your only objective in using the pool is to sit there and cool down. Couldn't you achieve the same in the showers?

My gym do this so that parents can watch swimming lessons. There’s nowhere to watch poolside. I love it because I can grab a coffee and watch rather than sit in a sweaty fog of chlorine/ kids feet.

I think if you don’t like it the best thing is talk to the managers to see if it can be turned off after swimming lessons are over but then they might not agree and/ or forget, so overall you might be better finding somewhere else.

FWIW the quality of the CCTV in our cafe isn’t great- quite often I have to search for my child- and I have literally never seen adults watching other adults in the 4 years I’ve been going there.

I really don't believe this. The ego here 'I don't want to be watched' really you are in a public area in a swimming costume. People can already see you...

As for pedos...they can put some trunks on and swim themselves. Plus there must be millions of photos of kids in swimming costumes on the Internet

I agree with the OP. It sounds unnecessary. So why open people up to being seen when they may feel uncomfortable?

If it can't be justified from a safety point of view, it shouldn't be shown. Also cctv is no substitute for an actual person, so it doesn't even work from a safety pov.

I wouldnt like that either. And I am not even not bothered about being in a swimming costume.

Unfortunately GDPR is a bit wishy washy when it comes to CCTV, as I found out when our gym manager installed it, but definitely worth looking at the details op and seeing if there's anything they're in breach of.

You do have a basic right to privacy, despite all the posters asking what you're afraid will happen 🙄

"don't use the pool then" - great, exactly what our society needs is to put people off exercise because we can't manage basic privacy