Be Aware of Rights When Setting Up a Video Surveillance System
If there have been incidents in or around your home that you think call for adding video surveillance, you have to be aware of the rights of anyone you catch on video. You may think crooks have no rights, but until they've been convicted, you do have to treat them like others in terms of surveillance. When you decide where to put cameras, as well as what types of cameras to get, keep the following in mind.
Expectation of Privacy
There are some places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The bathroom, for example, is not a place where people expect to have their images be monitored — in fact, that's considered creepy. The entrance to a home, on the other hand, is fair game because that's technically in view of the public, even though your neighborhood may be secluded. Inside your home, you could add cameras in areas that are relatively public in terms of people in the house. For example, the living room may be fine. However, if you plan to have anyone staying in your living room, like a relative visiting for a few days, you should warn them about the cameras and possibly point the cameras away from the specific area where the relative will be sleeping.
If you think the problems you're trying to stop are occurring in an area where video surveillance would not be appropriate, you may have to devise other ways to either determine something is going on or to exclude the people you think may be causing the problem. This may seem like an obstacle, but there are ways to do this; contact companies that specialize in legal video surveillance to see what they usually suggest to customers in the same boat. Remember, state laws vary regarding surveillance, so be sure you speak with a company that is in your state.
Audio Surveillance
Audio surveillance is difficult to deal with. State laws regarding wiretapping, which cover audio surveillance, often require the express permission of both the recorder and the person being recorded before any recordings are made. For this reason, many video surveillance systems are sold without an audio option. However, if you're looking at systems that have audio, you'll have to turn the audio off.
Destruction of Recordings
One more issue is the storage and destruction of the recordings from the system. Some systems are set to automatically record over older recordings after a set amount of time. Others require that you manually destroy the recordings (or at least manually set the system to destroy them). Set a deadline by which recordings will be destroyed, such as a month, and then stick to that. Because it's best to check recordings before you erase them, try to find a system that provides video that you can view in fast-forward mode. You don't want to be stuck monitoring hours of overnight surveillance tape.
Video surveillance companies in your state will have a good grasp of local laws. Let the companies know what you want to do and why, and they'll be able to help you find the right system and set it up legally.
