Law Talks Episode: Is your neighbour’s surveillance camera impacting your privacy?

Robyn: Welcome to Law Talks and today we have joining us from Attwood Marshall Lawyers Legal Practice Director Jeff Garrett. Thanks for joining us, Jeff. 

Jeff: My pleasure, Robyn. Morning.

Robyn: Well, Jeff, we’ve previously discussed neighbourhood disputes on this show and how they can escalate into legal issues. With the rise in accessibility of technology, more people are installing surveillance cameras on their properties to protect against youth crime and break ins.

This has raised important questions about whether you can legally install such equipment and how it might affect your neighbours’ privacy. Let’s delve into it and break it down. So, to start, what are some of the reasons why it’s becoming more common for residents to install security cameras around their homes, Jeff?

Jeff: Well, I think it’s, um, one of the main reasons is security, as you said, to combat theft. And the rising number of those, I think there was an RACQ report which said that the incidents of home invasions and thefts were at an all-time high for 2023. More than 6 million dollars in property stolen from Queensland homes in that year.

Robyn: Wow.

Jeff: So, I think everyone is more concerned about security and preventing that type of crime. They want to protect their home, their assets that they have at home.  In some cases, the people inside it too. You know, terrible things have happened. So, I think that the security and, then you’ve got the usual problem that happens when you have neighbour disputes, between two homes which are close by and, you know, the neighbours go crazy and they’ve got cameras pointed at each other and trying to track each other’s movements, those sorts of things.

Robyn: So, how can surveillance cameras lead to disputes between neighbours? 

Jeff: Yeah, well, I think everyone, who’s ever been involved with a dispute with their neighbour will, um, understand if you’ve got neighbour’s cameras being pointed at you and particularly the, um,  the motion detecting cameras which follow your movements and things like that can be quite daunting so they’re the you know the  people’s privacy, they’re worried about having cameras trained on them  being recorded all those sort of things come into it so that  quite often it escalates the problems between the neighbours.

Robyn: Are there any legal protections in Australia for neighbours who feel their privacy is being invaded by a neighbour’s surveillance camera?

Jeff: Not really. I mean, there’s the common law in relation to invasion of people’s privacy, etc. But nothing specific in relation to these types of issues. So, there’s been some cases that have come before the courts over the years where the common law has been applied. But it’s quite limited in relation to what relief you might be able to get from the courts to help you out there.

Robyn: So, can you tell us more about previous cases of neighbourhood disputes over surveillance cameras that ended up in court? 

Jeff: Yeah, well, there was a there’s a case in a New South Wales case, Supreme Court case, where you know, those types of things were involved. In that one, the cameras that were installed were motion detecting cameras that followed the neighbours no matter where they were on their property, including in their front yard, backyard, you know, the whole shebang.

So, the court in that matter said that’s going too far.  It’s okay to have cameras in relation to detecting the border of your property, where someone might climb over a fence to get into your property or do something at the border to damage your property or those types of things, but not to the point where the cameras detect every possible movement.

So, you know, if someone was having a barbecue in their backyard that you were filming people sitting at that barbecue or swimming in their pool or something like that. That’s going too far. But certainly, anything in relation to monitoring the border of your property in terms of security, even when it’s with a neighbour, then that is acceptable.

Robyn: And is videoing someone and recording someone with audio treated in the same way legally? 

Jeff: No. I’ve just described what you can do with cameras, and that’s pretty much that style of, what I’ve just outlined, is even when you’ve got your camera or your phone camera up in front of you and you’re filming someone.

You can’t really do that in their face, you know. If they’re doing something, that is aggressive, or you know, that’s okay for you to film that, but, following that person down the street and still filming them is going too far, so there’s those types of things, but when you’re getting to audio and recording people, you go into a whole new area of regulations.

There are state laws and there’s federal laws in relation to recording. And usually, as long as you’re a party to any conversation or things like that, you can record the audio. It gets a bit technical with phones and recording conversations on phones. Again, state laws versus Commonwealth laws, et cetera. In Queensland, it’s quite acceptable and legal to tape a phone conversation. As long as you’re in it.

Robyn: Without consent? 

Jeff: Without consent of the other party.

Robyn: Yeah, okay.

Jeff: What you do with it afterwards is quite restricted.  Okay. But in New South Wales, you can’t do that.  It’s against the law to do that. So, two big differences there in Queensland, New South Wales.

Then you’ve got the Commonwealth laws which sort of sit at the top of that and say that you can’t really record a Commonwealth telecommunication. So, but the way around that is you can record that outside of the phone.  So, if you’re on the phone, you’ve got an on loudspeaker, and you’ve got someone else’s phone and you’re recording that on the phone, that’s okay.

Robyn: Okay, it’s really quite intricate, isn’t it? So, what should someone do if they discover a neighbour’s camera is pointed at their house? 

Jeff: Well, if it invades their privacy along the lines of what I’ve said, they can ring the police in relation to that, although the police will usually say they don’t want to get involved, it’s a private matter, see a lawyer.

Similar sort of response from the council, if you do those things, you can go to a lawyer and get them to write a cease-and-desist letter to the person involved. It’s going to cost you. You could go to a community legal centre, or you could have a discussion with your neighbour about trying to resolve it.

Robyn: What advice would you give to someone who wants to install a surveillance camera to avoid these potential disputes with neighbours? 

Jeff: Yeah, I think you’ve got to be very careful about where you position it, in what places the camera, if it’s a motion detection camera particularly, where that will film your neighbours.

As I said before, it’s really going to be confined to somewhere on the border of your properties or where you think that the neighbour is doing something to damage your property or whatever. So anywhere along your border is okay, as long as it doesn’t, it’s not on all the time and it’s not infringing their right to privacy within their own yards.

Robyn: Yeah, I think, as you said, many people are installing these cameras in their homes with the intent of protecting their own homes for their own safety and not intentionally cause trouble for neighbours, but as you say, Jeff, always best to have a friendly chat with the neighbours first. 

Jeff: If you can do that, Robyn, it solves a lot of the problems. But then again, some of these disputes get to the stage where the neighbours don’t speak to one another. They can’t stand the sight of each other. They’re constantly calling the police, dubbing each other into the council, all of those things happen. So, and sometimes it ends up in violence, injury and even fatalities.

So, you know, I think you, everyone’s got to take a deep breath in some of these things and, installing cameras, it might just escalate the problem rather than solve one. Yeah.

Robyn: Alright, thanks for your advice today, Jeff.

Jeff: My pleasure, Robyn. Thank you.

Robyn: You’ve been listening to Law Talks here on 4CRB, which you can hear every Friday morning from 9 o’clock.