CCTV in rented flat?

WhiteHorse

Flyboy152 wrote: »

This is nothing to do with "if you have nothing to hide," it is about privacy and protection from having ones movements recorded by an unknown person or persons, for undisclosed reasons.

Indeed.

The best response to the 'if you have nothing to hide' gambit is 'if I'm innocent, then why do they want to spy on me?'.

peachyprice

Have you actually checked that it's connected to anything and not just a dummy camera? Does it have any lights on it, or leads leading from it?

liam8282

I had a friend who was being investigated by the council because of complaints from a neighbour. He liked to fix cars in his garden as a sort of hobby, but the neighbours didn't like this, which was fair enough, it then escalated to the point where the two neighbours had a big fall out.

The council set up cameras at the complaining neighbours property, which overlooked my friends garden and constantly filmed.

They were as described by the OP, supposed to be concealed, but you could see them if you knew where to look.

The point of this is, if the council are investigating somebody, are they at liberty to tell you if or even why they have installed these cameras? It would surely be pointless if they were trying to get evidence to use against somebody, if that person knew they were being filmed.

The_Pedant

The council set up cameras at the complaining neighbours property, which overlooked my friends garden and constantly filmed.

I would have thought that to be somewhat questionable. As the cameras were not for the personal use of the occupant wouldn't they fall outside of the DPA exclusion and therefore require signs up to state that recording was going on?

I would have thought the only exclusion to this is when filming for law enforcement purposes .... but on the face of it 'fixing cars as a sort of hobby' doesn't exactly sound like the a suitable reason.

bod1467

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/11/15/benefit-cheat-caught-by-the-cctv-he-campaigned-against-115875-23562260/

Not quite the same, but a story about a council installing CCTV in residential properties.

Mupette

up until last year i lived in council flats and they had camera's in the stairwell on the groundfloor and just outside the flats..

and a nice little shocker for you, expect a letter from them soon telling you your rent is about to go up to pay for it all...

one way to find out if it is council.... check your tv channels and see if you can get a new cctv channel (i kid you not) it is there perhaps for your safety?

Nilrem

Could it have been fitted by one of the other residents?
IIRC the "dome type" CCTV cameras are also available for about £25 as a dummy unit (sometime complete with PP3 battery holder and a little red LED - and if you're lucky it blinks!)
And Argos have been doing them cheap recently.

Flyboy152

WhiteHorse wrote: »

Ask the council in writing if the camera is theirs. If it is, then you know who to deal with. If inclined, you could file a Data Protection Act request to see footage of yourself (CCTV images are covered by the Act, as is information derived from that footage).

If not, then presumably the camera is unauthorised. It's installation may have entailed damage to council property, and the person responsible may have breached the Data Protection Act themselves. In that case, you will need to find who put the camera in.

Private individuals are not subject to the Data Protection Act.

MamaMoo_2

I know that all of the council flats around my area have CCTV cameras in the communal foyer on the ground floor (for which residents are charged about £4 each a week for maintenance and monitoring of. £4 per week, ~50 flats in a tower block, that's a nice little earner right there)
I live in a house above a shopping centre, and at the top of all of the sets of steps up from the street, there are CCTV cameras watching said steps, and they're the black dome ones (they're quite big and not sure whether we've got the domed ones because they're better protected what with being outside)
If the council deny all knowledge, then your best bet would be to have a word with the police, or even ask the council to remove it as, like you say, it's a breach of whoever's placed it's tenancy.

Flyboy152

The_Pedant wrote: »

I would have thought that to be somewhat questionable. As the cameras were not for the personal use of the occupant wouldn't they fall outside of the DPA exclusion and therefore require signs up to state that recording was going on?

I would have thought the only exclusion to this is when filming for law enforcement purposes .... but on the face of it 'fixing cars as a sort of hobby' doesn't exactly sound like the a suitable reason.

Under RIPA, I am pretty sure the council would have the ability to use covert methods to record images. The point of such an investigation would be to establish if they were really doing it as a hobby, or if they were actually running a business.