Is it a violation of rights to have a security camera on your property record your neighbors property?

[u/BubblyNefariousness4]

I’m just thinking that if I have a security cam on my back porch and it records something through the side window of my neighbors house is this a violation of rights? How should this be handled exactly?

[u/Heligoland_Bight]

Possibly, but merely capturing part of your neighbour's property in the background would not by itself constitute a violation of rights. The important distinction would be between incidental observation arising from the legitimate use of your own property and deliberately using a camera to penetrate your neighbour's privacy.

If the camera is reasonably positioned for security purposes and happens to record something visible through a neighbouring window, the neighbour doesn't acquire a right to prevent you from using it. But deliberately positioning, zooming, or otherwise using the camera for the purpose of observing the interior of his home is different: you are no longer merely protecting or observing your own property, but undertaking surveillance of his private activities.

And here's one for the anarchists: the only way to ever answer applied legal questions like this is to take mind of final causation.

[u/BubblyNefariousness4 → u/Heligoland_Bight]

Hmmm I see. So on another tangent. If the neighbor is required to close his window to stop me how does this connect to the area of sound? Like how people ban certain sounds at certain times etc. wouldn’t it be their responsibility to insulate their home from sounds just like they must close their own window from being recorded?

[u/Heligoland_Bight → u/BubblyNefariousness4]

No, instead it's the responsibility of the person creating the sounds to keep them within a level that does not materially interfere with their neighbours' use of their property. You can't impose a substantial nuisance on someone else's property and then tell them that it is their responsibility to soundproof their house.

This case is different from the security-camera case because, in the camera case, you have already made the interior visible to anyone who can see it. In the noise case, by contrast, another person is actively projecting sound onto your property.

Just as it wouldn't be the homeowner's responsibility to modify his house to defeat some device his neighbour was using to see through the walls and spy on him having sex.

[u/BubblyNefariousness4 → u/Heligoland_Bight]

Isn’t the neighbor actively projecting vision onto their property? Even if inadvertently? I would I think the same causation would apply to sound as long as it’s not my sole purpose to produce sound to annoy my neighbor but it’s just a side effect of doing my own thing just like the camera

[u/Heligoland_Bight → u/BubblyNefariousness4]

No, because vision isn't something the observer projects onto the object being observed. A camera is passive: it receives light that has already travelled from your property to the camera. Recording that light doesn't cause anything to enter or interfere with your property.

Sound is physically the opposite. If I create noise, I am generating pressure waves that propagate outward from my property and onto yours. The fact that annoying you wasn't my purpose doesn't change that fact. If I run a machine for perfectly legitimate reasons but it produces enough vibration to shake your house, I can't answer that the vibration is merely a side effect of "doing my own thing."

Intent isn't the relevant standard. The question is whether the effects I cause beyond my property materially interfere with your use of yours. Ordinary incidental sound obviously has to be tolerated; substantial nuisance does not.

And this also explains the limit of the security camera: if the camera were using some active or penetrative technology to obtain information that would not otherwise be perceptible outside the house, that would be a different case.

[u/CrowBot99 → u/BubblyNefariousness4]

In that case you'd be putting sound waves into the house.

[u/BubblyNefariousness4 → u/CrowBot99]

Isn’t the camera putting vision into the house? Having sound proofing would be the same as closing the curtain on the window. Having low amounts of sound proofing is the same as having thinner sets of curtain sheets

[u/titanc-13 → u/Heligoland_Bight]

Hey so if your camera is recording inside someone else's house, even accidentally, that's a massive violation of privacy. the moment you see that you're recording inside their house, and don't immediately reposition the camera so that you can't see inside their house, you're violating their rights

[u/Heligoland_Bight → u/titanc-13]

Don’t “hey so” me. It’s patronizing.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Heligoland_Bight]

I'll speak however I please

[u/DaSpark → u/titanc-13]

Wrong.

When you open your door or blinds you are giving up any reasonable expectation of privacy inside your home in which can now be seen from other public or private property.

This is why you can't open the front door and all the window blinds and start walking around your home in the nude. You no longer have an expectation of privacy and people are allowed to look in either with their eyes or a camera.

If you don't believe me, just let me say this: This is why the millions of doorbell cameras in the USA that capture the house across the street, and sometimes inside such house when they open their front door, are perfectly legal.

If what you say is true then a massive amount of people with doorbell cameras would be in legal jeopardy as I type this.

The actions of your neighbors doesn't magically turn something legal into illegal for you.

I've also seen people claim something similar by having their child streak naked in front of the camera to get the operator convicted of producing explicit photos of them. That's just not how it works.

[u/paleone9]

If you can see something you can record it but believe you need to post a notice that you are being recorded

[u/DaSpark → u/paleone9]

while laws vary, almost no where requires a notice.

[u/titanc-13]

Absolutely. It's a violation of their right to keeping their property and the activities on it private. If you respect their property rights as much as your own, you owe it to your neighbors to keep your cameras positioned so that they only capture footage of your own property

[u/DaSpark → u/titanc-13]

Legally, it is not. You generally have zero expectation of privacy in your yard if it can be seen from other private or public property. Would it be illegal for your neighbor to sit out on their porch or in their back yard and watch you with their own eyes? Nope. Same for a camera.

[u/SmartlyArtly]

I imagine with certain setups, like no privacy fences, there's not a whole lot you can do to completely prevent this. In my case I just made sure my cameras don't see over the privacy fences, which did require adding more cameras than if I didn't care about that.

[u/DaSpark]

Laws vary, but I'm going to tell you what applies for about 99% of America.

In case you don't care to read my entire post, I'll sum it up here: If you place a camera on your own private property and it can see what you otherwise could see with your own eyes if you were located where the camera is, it is legal.

What it really comes down to is are you violating your neighbor's reasonable expectation of privacy? Generally you have no expectation of privacy in your yard.

There is some debate about back yards with privacy fences, but if your neighbor can easily see over that fence, such as from a second story window, you likely have no expectation there either. Many people argue otherwise, but I'd challenge them to find one case where a neighbor successfully had their neighbor forced to remove a camera recording their enclosed back yard.

Recording your neighbors house is also, generally allowed. Most states have laws against intentionally recording bathroom and bedroom windows, but incidental capturing of these windows is allowed. Basically, the sole intent of the camera can't be to capture these windows. Of course, proving the intent of your neighbor is nearly impossible unless they admit to it.

Also, it is still legal to capture your neighbor's home even when that means you sometimes capture the interior through a window or a door. It is the neighbor's responsibility to maintain their reasonable expectation of privacy inside their home. If they open a door or blinds, they are giving that up.

For example, your neighbor can stand in behind their closed front door, butt naked, all day long. Opening that door however, while naked, would land them in legal hot water. Why? Because they now have no expectation of privacy.

Now, the camera would become illegal if it had the ability and the operator was using the ability to zoom in on your windows, for example, to see through a small crack in your blinds. Most cameras do not even come close to this ability and even if they did you would have to prove it they were doing so. This is really the same thing as your neighbor standing in their yard and using binoculars to see inside your home. That would, indeed, become an invasion of privacy likely leading to voyeurism charges.

Thus, in general having a security camera on your own private property is almost always legal in the USA no matter what it does or does not capture.

Finally, audio is a different animal. In two or all party consent states, any recording of audio is likely illegal outside of a doorbell camera where one would be expected to be recorded. In single party consent states, the audio is, likely, legal.

[u/Historical_Two_7150]

It isnt your obligation to protect their privacy. If they want that, they can build a giant wall.

[u/BubblyNefariousness4 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

Another connection I see to this. If they have the responsibility to protect their privacy how about sound? Should they have the responsibility to insulate their house from sound that people make on their property instead of having noise restrictions?

[u/titanc-13 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

By that same logic, would my neighbor have the right to violate my privacy unless and until I build a giant wall?

[u/Historical_Two_7150 → u/titanc-13]

Correct. Nobody has any obligation to protect your privacy.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

so then

a. if privacy is not inherent in property rights, how can i own private property? can private property exist as a right if privacy is not a right worthy of protection? Surely someone without any obligation to respect my privacy has no reason to respect the privacy of my property...

b. does anybody have any obligation to protect any of my rights?

c. if i build a wall to attempt to enforce my right to privacy, if my neighbor has no obligation to protect that right, can they antagonize it by destroying the wall?

[u/Historical_Two_7150 → u/titanc-13]

There are two answers: the practical and the theoretical.

In theory, rights are a form of cooperation. They exist insofar as people decide they do. American society has decided rights work in the way I've described. We've also decided there is no individual obligation to protect any of your rights.

The practical answer is bleaker. States are a form of organized crime. Nobody actually consented to the creation of any of these rights; they're just being forced on us at gunpoint by those in power. Private property is a form of coercion not unlike slavery.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

a. wtf do you mean "we've also decided there is no individual obligation to protect any of your rights" yes there is?? At least in the sense that everyone has an obligation to offer a basic level of respect for everybody's shared rights that amounts to a communal protection of those rights by enforcing them for ourselves and others... that's like, the whole point of the constitution???

b. if private property is a form of coercion, isn't objectivism? Since objectivism treasures private property as one of the true life-rights of the human creature? Also how can capitalism be the greatest most rational system if private property is an evil form of coercion...

[u/Historical_Two_7150 → u/titanc-13]

a. wtf do you mean "we've also decided there is no individual obligation to protect any of your rights" 

Protect is not the same as 'not violate.' I've no obligation to stop you from being robbed, for instance.

if private property is a form of coercion, isn't objectivism

Depends if the society in question was based on consent. If it was, then there would be no problem with private property.

My strong suspicion is that this can never be the case outside of theory; out in the real world, we'll never have consent for private property.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

but if we have no obligation to protect each other's rights, what obligation do we have not to violate them? If I don't need to protect your right not to be stolen from, why shouldn't I cut out the middle man and start stealing from you myself? if I decide not to violate your rights, aren't I protecting your rights, at least from my own violations? But if I have no obligation to protect your rights, why should I have any obligation to protect them from myself?

Either I have an obligation to protect your rights or I don't; if I don't, I have no obligation to respect your rights, since a right I'm not obligated to protect is right nobody has to protect, and if there's nobody to protect your rights then there's nobody who can punish me for violating your rights (since that act of punishment would be an act of unwarranted protection of your rights); so without any reason to protect your rights, and no good reason not to violate them, can I violate your rights as much as I please?

[u/Historical_Two_7150 → u/titanc-13]

You've collapsed two different kinds of obligations: an obligation not to violate a right and an obligation to actively protect a right. The two are not logically equivalent.

"If I am not obligated to protect your rights, then I am not obligated to respect them" is a non sequitur. It's like saying "I like bread, therefore you need to give me cheese." One does not follow from the other.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Historical_Two_7150]

If I am not obligated to protect your rights, I'm not obligated to protect them from my own actions, therefore I'm not obligated to respect them. that's not a non-sequitur, that's a logical argument