Loitering at my door eyeying up planter

[doorbellcamera]

Wondering whether anyone has caught someone on camera eyeing bits up who clearly then saw the camera and left? I'm bed bound at the moment and heard someone walking up the path, dog went and still steps. Caught him for about 20 seconds looking either side of my front door then seeing camera and deciding not to step into porch - doesn't realise it films whole path - and stands for about 5 seconds eyeing up my old victorian planter in my porch before going.
I'm tempted to put his picture with a star over his head on the fb page and say he has been caught on camera, but not sure if this would just egg him on or is legal? I'm quite scared as I live alone and not in good health at the moment. Think he chanced it as my bin was left out after collection.

Yes, he is up to no good.
He was on your property for no reason. Not illegal to post it on fb.

Just don’t actively accuse him of anything. Pic speaks for itself.

Could have been looking for parcels tucked down the side of the planter.

Takes all sorts, we had someone come up to our front door, lift our planters and smash them in a fit of rage. Then they buggered off down the road, and smashed up some other people's stuff. Quite why, who knows. One of the episodes was caught on a neighbours camera, quite glad someone noticed or I'd have been left guessing and thinking it was personal.

Putting his picture on Facebook could be a breach of GDPR.

That's what I was wondering (GDPR) also don't want it to make him retaliate. That's why I was going to star his face.

I've never understood why MNetters get so upset by people walking up to their front doors.

He was probably lost, OP.
Forget about it.

How do you know he was eyeing up your planter and not just looking for something?

Can you get someone to move the planter?
A neighbour might help if you explain the situation.
Then buy some of those signs saying CCTV in operation.
Tbh I doubt he'll come back now he's seen the camera but you never know so better safe than sorry.

Don't let him come in and use your toilet, OP.

It is a long pathway and he was not a delivery driver. As pp said, why else was he walking up to my door and looking around in my front garden/by my windows? There is no reason to do this unless he was casing my house for entry points IMO.

How so?

Domestic use.
No expectation of privacy.

The OP needs to be careful not to say or imply anything defamatory, but I can't see how GDPR is a risk for her.

Putting a photo on Facebook is not domestic use.

Whether the individual has any expectation of privacy is irrelevant. If they are identifiable from a photo, it is personal data. OP can only process it for personal or household activities. If she goes beyond that, she needs a lawful basis for processing. Without a lawful basis, posting the photo on Facebook would be a breach of GDPR which would potentially allow the individual involved to seek compensation from OP.

However, I see from OP that, when she talked about putting a star over his head, she meant obscuring his face. If she does that and, as a result, the individual is not identifiable, she can do whatever she wants with the photo.

OP if you're going to obscure this miscreant's face, what's the point of exposing him online?

Is your interpretation is backed by any case law to date?

There have been a couple of cases where posting of photos of children on social media without the parents' consent, were found to breach GDPR but there were complicating factors around how the photos were obtained. I'm not aware of any case where a social media posting of a photo of an adult, taken for lawful domestic purposes, has been found to breach GDPR.

Just contact the community police - they might recognise him.

There was a Dutch case in 2020 where a grandmother posted pictures of her grandchildren on Facebook and Pinterest. The children's mother (the grandmother's daughter) objected and took it to court. The court ruled that, as it wasn't possible to determine the extent to which the grandmother kept her Facebook and Pinterest postings private, and it was unclear whether the photos could be found by search engine, the posts were not covered by the "household exemption" and GDPR should apply.

This was a Dutch court, so this ruling is not binding on the UK courts. However, when advising someone, I would take the cautious approach when advising someone such as OP and assume that the UK courts might make a similar ruling, particularly if this case was brought to their attention.

AFAIK, there has not been a single UK case of this type and, in the whole EU, I'm not aware of a single case involving an adult. That is pretty reassuring.

I therefore don't think it's accurate to say that, "posting the photo on Facebook would be a breach of GDPR", given that we're relying on a single case in the nearly 6 years since GPDR was adopted, in a country with a different legal system. At most, we can say that UK courts might take view that posting would be a breach.

I said it could be a breach, not that it definitely would be

To be fair, you did say:

OP can only process it for personal or household activities. If she goes beyond that, she needs a lawful basis for processing. Without a lawful basis, posting the photo on Facebook would be a breach of GDPR which would potentially allow the individual involved to seek compensation from OP.

Obviously, the first two sentence are correct, but the third isn't. We do not know what view the UK courts might take on the lawfulness or otherwise of posting images taken for personal or household activities, whether they would consider posting them a breach of GDPR, or whether they would award compensation.

Even in the single Dutch case you cite, there were multiple postings and the woman involved had refused multiple requests to turn take them down.

Yes, that third sentence should have said "could", not "would".

It will be interesting to see how case law develops. I find the Dutch judgement confusing, because it implies that the personal/household exemption from GDPR is conditional on what you do with the data, even if what you do with it isn't an activity that necessarily makes you a data controller (or processor) under GDPR. Most of us post data on social media all the time including third party data. Does that turn us all into data controllers under GDPR? (We can't be processors, because, if so, who is the controller?).

If the Dutch woman had been flogging the photos for profit, the judgement would make more sense.

We live in an area rife with break ins at the moment (mainly car theft) unfortunately anyone who walks up to the door and doesn’t deliver / knock is suspicious :(

Unless you live on a street with only house names, or numbers you can't see easily from the road. When I've been picking someone up I've had to get out and walk up drives to read the names/numbers sometimes.

My parcel was delivered to the wrong house so I sent my adult son to the neighbouring houses to check for it. Could be something like that?