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Comment by cannonedhamster | Hacker News Reader

Do I have the freedom not to be filmed by your doorbell and have it sent to the police without even your permission to be processed and stored for however long they want and possibly used against me at a later date for something that isn't even a crime now?

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Sure. Just stay off my porch.

And don’t walk by my house? For that matter, don’t bother visiting me?

If you're walking by my house, you're in public, and you have no expectation of privacy. (Actually, that's not true -- my house isn't visible from the street, so if you're on my cameras, you're definitely on my property.)

If you're visiting me, you're on my property, ditto.

Any attempts to "fix" this will only make the world worse in the end. The people you empower to enforce your opinions about privacy in (semi-)public places will begin by exempting themselves from whatever well-intentioned rules you have in mind.

s/my porch/the public roadway that my camera is recording 24x7/

(Shrug) If Google can film public areas, then so can I.

See, that's kind of the whole idea behind public areas. You aren't entitled to any expectation of privacy there. That's why they're called public areas, and not private areas.

The distinction is remarkably easy to comprehend.

The distinction between could could and should? Or the distinction between private and public? Because all are debated on a regular basis, vary by jurisdiction/country, and are not black and white. Take the issues surrounding filming police officers in public is an example.

Take the issues surrounding filming police officers in public is an example.

Right, and that's a good example of what I was talking about in my earlier reply, with regard to any attempt at "fixing" the Ring situation leaving us in a worse place than where we are now.

Currently, in the US, you have the right to put up a doorbell camera and record anything that happens on your property or in public areas adjacent to it. This is a GOOD thing. Rest assured, any restrictions on public/private recording will serve the police, and no one else.

Recorded phone calls without consent in some states is still inadmissible as evidence in court. Surely at least that law would protect the person in the other end of the lens.

Those laws are just further examples where the powerful have shielded themselves at our expense. Corrupt cops and public officials have more to hide than you and I do, so they have more to fear from being recorded.

The problem is that this is not your data alone. These devices are cloud hosted and subject to subpoena (at best). Indeed any restrictions on these recordings will serve the police.

I have zero objections to you recording your porch or driveway or whatever 24/7. Just don’t send it to amazon or google where they face match me and use their clever algorithms to extract money out of me at a store or something. Keep the video to yourself.

I hear you, certainly. I have cameras on my front porch, but you don't need to worry about the footage ending up in the hands of the police unless you actually commit a crime against me or my neighbors. And you don't need to worry about it being sent to Amazon in any event, because that's not going to happen, ever.

But I don't know how to give you the guarantees you're asking for without harming my rights, and ultimately yours.

Wait are we agreeing haha. I thought this whole thing was about ring and nest cameras that are mined by big corps.

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