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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

The camera may be acting as a deterrent (if they didn't have any additional thefts) without it being obvious.

I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property- just into windows and other semi-private locations. That includes both audio and video. I ascribe to the "it's legal for journalists to go through your trash, so if you want privacy, shred your trash first" philosophy.

I added a new camera that includes the school across the street and if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it (they asked for a breakin across the street, but my camera wasn't pointed there).

One important details is that I buy fairly generic cameras that aren't talking to the outside world/cloud services although it's still a risk.

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> I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property

In Germany people have successfully sued their neighbours for that and I fully agree with the courts. Filming others without consent is invasive.

In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public (or at least severely limited) and the courts have upheld again and again that recording public areas, even from a private area, is completely find. Some jurisdictions require notification or consent for audio recording, but not all.

I find it really unfortunate that the US is so blatantly disregarding data privacy. In a world of eroding freedom, lack of data privacy can become a severe safety risk. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the reversal of Roe v. Wade and Russia's recent moves give me an idea of dynamics that can turn dark quickly.

RvW is an interesting point here - I routinely saw people camped out recording every entry point of a Planned Parenthood for example, including separate cameras pointed lower to capture licence plates. I'm assuming they later post these online or run some kind of ALPR on it for harassment.

Yup, and the same people are outraged that people are posting home address details of Supreme Court Justices. The same court that ruled it was legal to post the home address of obstetricians so people could protest in front of their homes.

People and companies in US don't know what 'privacy' means. All software companies (maybe except Apple), car companies (especially Tesla), telecoms, etc. just collect huge amounts of customer data not giving a damn about consent.

A US law is shaped by what we think is

1) acceptable behavior

2) enforceable, practically

I think video recording laws are largely influenced by 2).

I can angle my Ring camera to my smoking hot neighbor so I can record her doing yardwork. Creepy AF (breaks rule 1) but at what angle is it not obviously deliberate? Turned 10 degrees toward her lawn? 30?

Point being, I think US recording laws are too liberal but we need a defineable limit for privacy.

Maybe photon distance? Capturing photons traveling further than 30m into the aperture is invasive? (half kidding)

A physical mask that blocks the view to the hot neighbour, but not to your areas of interest would give them some reassurance.

What about the satellites mimicking God watching over everyone?

I am not really fine with with them, but that's another can of worms.

Ok, but what if I am trying to monitor my driveway where I park my vehicle but the hot neighbor's flowers are in the same line of sight just beyond my parking space? It's not always feasible to block a portion of the view without blocking the entire reason for having the camera in the first place.

I think a German court would ask in such cases which has more weight: a) your interest in security, or b) your neighbour's interest in privacy. I think the default is b), but there are cases where a) has more weight, for example if your house was already broken into and you can reasonably explain why this exact angle is crucial for your security. Just catching some flowers in the picture does not make a strong case for b).

From the street photography articles I've read; if you can see it from a public space then its fair game, which I think is reasonable. But in your scenario the camera is on your private home, so most people would expect reasonable privacy from being recorded.

Yes, if it's in public it's fair game thanks to the 1st amendment.

The nextdoor homeowner probably has a right to setup a tripod, a laser pointer (or a similar bright spot light) and point it directly at the neighbor's Ring camera iris.

i would ask my nieghbour if they care about it or not, perhaps make a guest feed if they are agreeable to mutual camera coverage, let them have some opportunity to see what is on camera and where it points

> I can angle my Ring camera to my smoking hot neighbor so I can record her doing yardwork

Probably too late to add that this was a hypothetical, but I'm glad the voting on this indicates how much we despise what's legally allowed.

Who would want to live next to someone after a lawsuit between you? This is a neighbor-relations issue first and foremost.

Sounds like relations between these two neighbors is already pretty bad -- the guy crosses the street to walk on the other side? Because he was asked not to point his security camera at someone else's property? Some people are just... children.

Wait til you see two neighbors arguing about property lines.

At least that I can understand. It has implications on right of way, usage, easements, property values, etc. without even getting into issues of adverse possession (which combined with property value issues can become real trouble).

The line between "please don't point your camera onto my property" - something I would respect as a courtesy regardless of the law - and "I'm going to cross the street not to interact with this person" goes straight through mental illness in my opinion. Normal, stable people do not behave that way.

A lot of "Normal" people are not stable. People are petty, vindictive and childish, to think anything else is just flying in the face of evidence.

Police capture a tremendous amount of data using this theory. But citizens don't have access to that data because it's considered confidential.

this post reads luke a paradox

This is not true; rules vary state to state. In Massachusetts, for example, you cannot "secretly" record others, in public or private.

Putting out the yard sign or one of the stickers that comes with the Ring camera solves the "secrecy" issue.

> In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public

It's not clear that "on your property" counts as "in public" in all cases.

Front yard, visible from the street, probably "public" in most jurisdictions. Backyard, or somewhere shielded from view without entering yours or someone else's private property? I would argue that is "private" space that should be protected but it would probably come down to the specific circumstances to be certain.

This is the operational definition I'm working from.

But do you enjoy that people in the US don't have this expectation of privacy? Do you believe those laws could change?

My front door is not a 'public area', not really

You don't have a legal expectation of privacy anywhere visible from public property, including even the inside of your house viewable from a public easement/street.

Because of this, it's legal for someone to point a camera right inside your window or front door. It's also illegal (public indecency) for you to be naked in your own window or open door.

If I set up a telescope to look inside your window most people would call that an invasion of privacy, even if the telescope was set up on public property. Having a high resolution digital camera where images can be zoomed and a very sensitive microphone that can pick up conversations is similar, in my opinion.

in my neck of the woods if your far enough away that someone has to use binoculars or some other artficial means, even eyeglasses, they are breaking the law. you, the one being observed are not at fault.

"naked in your own window or open door. "

That's legal in Canada, or at least the police won't arrest you if you do it in your apartment across from a school.

Mine is; amazon drivers take a snapshot every time they deliver a package (I guess this is proof it's been delivered?). Many people can easily walk up to it, unimpeded. Hell, neighborhood kids run onto my front yard and sit in my trees (get off my lawn!!!). It meets every necessary definition of "public", while still being property that belongs to you.

I live across from a school; hundreds of people see my house exterior for days. I wouldn't apply a different rule to a security camera.

I understand some folks have different privacy standards than me. I'm not asking you to follow my privacy rules, as they are a bit more open about public spaces than many people enjoy.

If somebody wanted me to not point my camera at their driveway, a legal threat would be the absolute worst way to achieve it.

There is a difference between a camera from across the street and a camera from across the driveway.

And obviously a legal threat is a last resort after good-faith questioning.

I am not really sure what your objection is to the comment above yours, because these concerns seem misplaced.

> I understand some folks have different privacy standards than me. I'm not asking you to follow my privacy rules, as they are a bit more open about public spaces than many people enjoy.

Private spaces that are publicly visible do not automatically become public spaces, though.

We're talking about my front yard. I can go on street view and see exactly what everybody else driving by sees. The only change is that they scrub faces and license plates, which I could do using AgentDVR + DeepStack.cc and some scripting.

If you tried pointing a camera over my fence into my backyard, then I start complaining.

> We're talking about my front yard.

Yes, agreed! Your front yard is a private space, even though it is publicly visible. You have every right to afford as much public access to it as you please, but the mere fact that you're the one who has the right to make that decision means it is a private space.

> We're talking about my front yard. I can go on street view and see exactly what everybody else driving by sees. The only change is that they scrub faces and license plates, which I could do using AgentDVR + DeepStack.cc and some scripting.

I think a major difference is that a permanent camera allows documenting who is entering and leaving a house at which times, while street view or driving by do not. Even a nosy neighbour behind the curtains would most probably not be able to gather a complete history.

> a legal threat would be the absolute worst way to achieve it.

I agree, just asking is always a sensible first step, as well as making proactively sure that your camera does not invade anyone's private space, but I can see how that can happen unintendedly.

The neighbor has a catalog of audio recordings of conversations had on the porch 24/7.

Does this school have traffic 24/7 and do you broadcast everything from your front steps via a megaphone (and keep recordings)?

There are many comments here about video/audio recordings from public onto private property however there are various degrees of recording.

If there was a public park across the street from your house and someone setup surveillance-level equipment pointed at your front door, I'm not sure there is a rational judge who would consider this "oh well, they're on public land, nothing we can do here".

Germany's entire threat model, at a cultural level, is 100% different from the US due to differing histories. Germany is concerned about how networks of tattle-tale can be used by fascists to organize oppression. Americans are concerned about how crime flourishes in the unobserved corners of urban environments.

These are both, basically, bogeymen. But the German bogeyman is the Nazis returning and the American bogeyman is the transient murderer.

> These are both, basically, bogeymen. But the German bogeyman is the Nazis returning and the American bogeyman is the transient murderer.

Eastern Germany had another authoritarian surveillance state after the Third Reich. I have no good reason to be confident that it will not happen again. It could as well happen in the US, considering recent history.

An authoritarian surveillance state that is paired with digital surveillance is the grim reality of at least hundreds of millions today and that model seems to be on the rise internationally.

More like billions of people.

Anyone who thinks that the power of the surveillance state won't be abused is naive. The existence of "benign" surveillance hinges on those with power always acting in good faith and never faltering. There are practically zero repercussions for abusing that power, and little to no checks and balances, either.

> It could as well happen in the US

It already has.

It's interesting that Germany makes a distinction between observing and recording images or video, while the US does not. The US does distinguish (typically in state law) between listening and recording. Recording is different from watching/listening. It's reasonably possible to know who is present at any given time, but not possible to know in advance who might hear/see a recording in the future.

I do, however think Germany's law goes a bit too far: as I understand it, use of surveillance cameras on private property without warning signs is illegal even if a person would have to be trespassing to be recorded. I do not think trespassers should enjoy a right to privacy with regard to their trespass.

It's not just about trespassers, it's also about anyone who was invited onto the property that's under surveillance. Guests, workers and contractors who are invited onto the property have a right to know if they're being recorded or not.

Sure, but they can be informed individually.

Yeah, but how do you prove that everyone was informed? It needs at least to happen in written form and at that point, you can just put up a sign.

> US does distinguish (typically in state law) between listening and recording. Recording is different from watching/listening. It's reasonably possible to know who is present at any given time, but not possible to know in advance who might hear/see a recording in the future.

I'm not sure how universal is, and it's not always reasonably possible to know who is listening. You can listen from afar. But I would think most states have eavesdropping laws that include overhearing. Here is an example from my state, Kentucky.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/chapter.aspx?id...

This law covers both listening and recording.

In that law, it's specifically by using a device, presumably one that enables the user to hear things their unaided ears could not. The law doesn't cover eavesdropping by being present and undetected using unaided ears.

A similar law could be written to cover viewing using magnified optics; existing laws in the US are usually written in terms of a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is not always clearly defined. I think anything viewable from a public place with an unaided eye would probably not fall under that category.

I heard that when cameras were first invented, some cultures rejected them because they believed they were stealing their souls. Sounds like some silly superstition but I have a feeling that what both them and you are really worried about is the fact that people looking at a photo of you are only seeing a small slice of your "soul" or personhood disconnected from the social interactions that would normally occur if they were looking at you in real life. So it's more a worry about losing control of your influence over how other people perceive you, which is a major part of being human.

The older I get the more superstition makes sense. I used to think older people were superstitious because they were more likely to have existential crises (since they were closer to death) but now that I'm middle aged I've realized that it's because human reason is surprisingly slow and the universe is surprisingly big and there's just too much to work through from first principles.

I've been having a similar change but it's not only about there being too much for us to work out from first principles but also an awareness that human minds seem to have a need to believe things which is orthogonal to knowing the truth or being logical. We don't believe in superstitions and religions because we want to make practical use of that knowledge or because it's the logical conclusion from some reasoning - we do it because the act of believing satisfies some biological need. It's easier to believe things when they're not obviously false but truth isn't really what's important about it.

When I see people saying "You idiot, of course the earth isn't flat!" or "All religions are stupid.", I just think they haven't understood the value of belief, even, or especially, false beliefs.

This whole philosophy of valuing truth and using science and all that is fairly modern and seemingly unnatural. I wonder if it's creating an emotional cost in all the people who rejected emotionally or biologically valuable beliefs in favor of being right.

Your trash analogy doesn’t hold up because trash becomes “public” once it’s on the street which isn’t part of your property. “Publicly visible spot on my property” is a meaningless phrase; it’s still my property, and I’m legally (here at least) allowed to raise an objection to the recording of it.

I can’t and wouldn’t object to someone recoding the sidewalk in front of my house. I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard. You might not see a distinction but there absolutely is one.

I can't ask the people who drop their kids at the school across the street not to look at my yard, so why would I complain about a camera? Because it's always on and recording? Still not convincing to me. My exterior yard (the part not surrounded by a tall fence) is for everybody to look at. In fact lots of people stop by my house to look at our amazing maple tree and start conversations with us.

I think main differentiator is that an individual human is unlikely to stand in one place just watching for an extended period of time. It actually was very expensive to do that kind of surveillance not that long ago, which is why it was not deployed without a good reason. Camera, on the other hand, is cheap. Individual creep is preferable to a panopticon.

None of these things really bother/worry me. This is mainly a threshold argument- a thing that was hard got easier, but didn't fundamentally change what is possible for a dedicated adversary.

The scale of difference between $25/hr for a human and less than $0.01/day (amortized over the lifespan of the camera/service) changes the economics entirely. The circumstances before and after are paradigmatically different.

How is that not fundamentally different?

1) Human stands there and watches your property. A description of what happened on your property is subject to whether or not people believe this human, and the fallibility of human memory. This human cannot be there 24/7, and must -- at minimum -- break to sleep, acquire food, and use the bathroom. In reality, they'll have many other demands on their time that mean they can't (or won't want to) spend much time watching your property.

2) A connected, always-on recording device that captures what's happening in high definition, 24/7 (assuming it has an IR light; if not, ok, more like 12/7). This becomes an indisputable, permanent record that can be replayed as often as anyone wants, and that most reasonable people would believe, without question, as reflecting what is truly going on.

How are these two things not fundamentally different? This is approaching "definition of fundamental" territory.

Clearly, we have different premises.

Exactly. The high cost of human eyeballs trained on a specific target for long periods of time introduces a negative feedback loop which tames the overreach. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras with virtually unlimited storage eliminates that self-regulating mechanism and degrades the trust between members of a society.

Sorry you are not convinced, but looking and recording are different.

If I hear my neighborhood talking - hearsay

If I record my neighbors talking - admissible evidence

I believe they are both considered hearsay (in U.S. law), and both are admissible depending on the conditions

Would you also be fine with people filming you through your windows? Why not, after all it's visible from a public space with the right angle. And windows are just part of another kind of "fence".

In the end it's private property and that makes it private by default. Nobody can forbid you from looking at it, but imho filming is just as invasive as parking the car there while having greater potential for abuse. Filming has intent that goes farther than just randomly looking around.

I use drapes and shapes to get privacy for my windows. My intent Here is to prevent school shootings and help investigate crimes that occur on my property or my neighbor's property. Definitely not my intent to stare at my neighbors in their private lives and they understand that completely.

How are cameras supposed to prevent school shootings? The best they can do is let you watch cops do nothing as we could see in Texas. Prevention is much more important and much cheaper but that's not done either.

And I don't know why I'd spend money in anticipation of a potential crime in front of my home, donating data to Amazon in the meantime. The police is already tracking phones and using other methods no single camera can match.

>I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard. You might not see a distinction but there absolutely is one. You certainly can raise an objection but it has no legal weight behind it. Anything that is in public view can be legally filmed. I think there may be some federal prohibitions against filming sensitive government areas though not sure if these have ever been testing in court. Walk around naked in your front yard or in your house in front of an open window you are eligible to be legally (though maybe creepily) filmed.

> “Publicly visible spot on my property” is a meaningless phrase

Indeed, your property or not, it's still a "publicly visible spot", and the creep is legally (in the US at least) allowed to be creepy in this way over your objections

> I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard.

The creep can, and absolutely will, object to your objections, and be allowed to continue (in the US at least).

Privacy requires constant vigilance, in terms of electing lawmakers.

> if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it

Yeah, I see nothing wrong with this: The law has to ask you, the owner of the camera, for the footage. No legal process can circumvent your knowledge of the footage request, and you can review the footage prior to handing it over. This is all possible because you made good non-cloud infrastructure decisions.

This is basically how it should work, but the fact that Amazon is a third party means the government can legally compel them separately from you being aware. There's no fix for this: Cloud storage is a critical failure of the design of the Ring system.

It's not illegal for journalists to go through your trash, but can't we have a bar for treating our neighbors that's higher than not being criminals?

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