Transcript:

Transcript:

0:00
I have another solid question for you today are security cameras and invasion of privacy.
I’m Jeremy Vance and this is your security survival guide.
And this is the show where we talked to business owners and homeowners and try to explain more about their security system so that they understand what goes on in the background, how to make them more safe and hopefully add value, save them some money.
0:22
So today, like we said, we’re going to talk about basis of cameras.
Are they intrusive?
How do we make it so they’re not intrusive?
How do you protect your data online?
All those questions, what kind of cover in a very quick but brief process.
0:39
If at any time you want to dig deeper into these, obviously the lovely Google and YouTube can help you search for stuff, but I’m more than happy to have a one-on-one conversation with you for absolutely free.
Just reach out and we’ll have a chat and I can give you some more background on all of this topic and how it affects your day-to-day life and how to protect yourself really.
1:00
So let’s go ahead and start with why this conversation is coming up in 2026.
Now it’s we went from a stage a few years back where everybody was very afraid of Big Brother and cameras and then it kind of chilled out.
1:20
Cameras have become super common.
You see them literally every business, every home that where they have valuable income contents inside, they have cameras up and around.
So why now?
Why is it all of a sudden becoming a popular question again?
1:36
And the answer is actually the Super Bowl.
Besides the whole Bad Bunny and Kid Rock fiasco, there was a commercial by Ring cameras where they basically said that they’re able to use all of the Ring doorbells and cameras within a neighborhood to search for lost animals now, where it’s like a cute commercial.
2:03
The problem is, is that it came out that they’re actually working with Flock, which is a software security company, and they also have facial recognition software running that is meant to be able to tell you when somebody that’s not your family shows up.
2:21
But they’re storing all of that information.
And the Flock side of that is because government agencies can use Flock to actually go into the Ring search history and information.
So your information with a simple request that’s digital and unmanned.
2:41
Now Ring has come out after the fact because there was a bit of backlash about this and they have cancelled the contract with Flock.
The reasons that they gave was because it was actually more technically challenging than what they wanted.
But the underlying belief in the industry is that it was actually APR move because of the backlash from all of this.
3:06
So let’s go ahead and just briefly talk about that.
So ideally we want our data and our video and everything else to be secure.
We want to be able to know that anything that we record is ours and we can trust it and we don’t have to worry about something else, somebody out there in the world being able to have access to our stuff like that is a big part.
3:32
So now, So what this kind of has meant for the conversations I’m having with my clients is that we’re moving from a all right, I need to have this footage and I want to see it all online and everything like that to now people are more concerned that they’re a node in the dragon, right?
3:57
Like there is some sort of overall arching corporate company or government that can view your data and stuff like that.
So that’s what we’re going to try to alleviate for you, and we’ll do that near the end.
4:13
I’ll give you some tech advice on which ones are actually best for you and which one or not.
But let’s just dial it back one step real fast.
And actually, let’s talk about camera placement in your business, in your home and when traditionally and legally it’s invasive and intrusive and when it’s not.
4:35
So for for all intents and purposes, when it’s OK is when it’s a public invisible area.
Now anything that you can kind of see from the street that you have access to, you can have camera footage covering that area.
4:51
Now inside your property, you can cover whatever you want really.
But we’re talking about more your neighbors.
So if I have my business and next to my business is another business, I can legally without any repercussions, have the cameras on the front of mine covering my front driveway or yard.
5:13
And it can have some coverage of the neighbor’s front driveway and yard too, right.
That’s kind of the, the, the given there.
Now what we want to keep in mind as well too, is how cameras actually help.
5:30
So they’re evidence collection for 99% of the cameras in the world.
They’re not going to stop people from doing anything.
They’re there.
So you have proof and evidence that you can share with the world and with the police and with lawyers and everybody else saying, look, so and so did this and here is my proof.
5:47
I have it recorded legally from.
So we want to make sure we’re not doing anything that can kind of invalidate that footage.
So public areas are OK.
All right, the front yard rule is like this basically like universal rule, no matter where you are in the world that is.
6:03
So if I’m looking at my front yard and I capture some of the public area or my neighbor’s front yard or another business’s front yard, that’s fine.
Now, where do we want to avoid having camera footage?
So we’re talking about things that will make it to where if you have to use this camera footage and accord a lot of prove your point, you’d get in more trouble than not having the footage.
6:23
So the first one is private spaces.
So this is more for your staff and things like that.
You don’t want to have it in change rooms, bathrooms, those kinds of things, things that were.
It’s a sensitive area.
Yeah, that’s like a big one that we actually have had to do audits for companies before.
6:44
So if you ever want to work with us, by the way, just reach out.
I’d be happy to work with you specifically if you’re in Melbourne and Brisbane.
But we do cover Australia wide.
But we had a client that had a complaint that a member of their staff thought that there was cameras in the change rooms for the women’s change room, and we actually had to come in and do an audit on it.
7:06
So that looks for like electronic devices, cabling coming from the ceilings.
We’re going through the cavities of the walls, making sure there’s no cabling there, and we didn’t find anything.
But this is a concern that people actually have.
So we want to make sure that we’re not putting ourselves in that position to where we have to worry about that stuff.
7:27
Public spaces only really is what we can now, the second side of that on the intrusive side, so first being private spaces, the second one being audio.
Audio is weird because most cameras now can record audio.
The trick is, is that where you are located, there may or may not be laws against recording audio without somebody’s consent.
7:52
So for example, you could be somewhere where there’s no you just record audio, it’s your own private property, who cares, right?
That’s the thing on the other end, there may be rules where it’s like, OK, you can record audio but you need to put up signs.
And then the final one is that you cannot record audio without Google’s express permission.
8:11
And so you really shouldn’t be recording audio.
Now all the cameras have the ability to disable the audio and or not record it.
So that part’s fine.
You just need to make sure you check with your local laws first.
If you do have questions on that, reach out, we’ll figure out where you are and I’ll be able to help you kind of find the local statutes for your area and see what we can do to kind of help you figure out that front.
8:39
So that’s audio recording.
Now the last one, so private spaces audio recording, the last one is what we call a tent.
So if I have a camera that’s off of my business and let’s say my business backs up against a residential spot.
8:56
So normally I would be, if we were setting up the cameras, I would be looking down into my yard, have the analytics.
So the active deterrence, which is what we want, some cameras with sirens and strokes, we want to be able to let people know that it’s not just evidence, collect evidence capturing, it’s actually doing something.
9:14
It can send an alert to the control room or to you and on site it has sirens and strokes.
We’ll do that usually about a meter inside your properties because we need want to give a little bit of space so that we don’t get false alarms.
So about a meter inside your property inwards.
But if I take that camera and I face that camera at the bedroom window of the neighbor across the street, even though technically I can publicly see it from my driveway and it’s like zoomed in on just this person’s window, that can very easily be construed as intent or harassment.
9:54
So again, the intent of the cameras when you look at them should be able to go.
I need to be able to see this because this is my property and I’m worried about intruders here or OHNS here or somebody having a heart attack here, right?
10:12
It’s not AI want to see into the neighbor’s bedroom situation.
That’s when you get in trouble.
So, you know, don’t do that.
OK, so that’s the intent.
So just really to cover those all three again.
So we have private spaces.
10:27
You should not have cameras and private spaces specifically change rooms, bathrooms, things like that.
Audio recording, check your local statutes, but for the most part, audio recording should be used very sparingly.
And then intent, don’t use your cameras to harass anybody, especially any of our special like PTZ cameras, which are the ones that can pan and zoom and tilt and you can drive them from your phone.
10:50
Use them for their, their intended purpose.
So now let’s go ahead and roll into what the best practices are here.
So to make sure that when you put up cameras for your business or your home, that you are not making others feel uncomfortable.
11:07
You’re you’re able to kind of prove these points of, yes, I’m using it for the right intent.
There’s a few things we suggest now.
The first is obviously focus on choke points.
So these could be like your entry points or somewhere where somebody can jump a fence, anything like that.
We want to be able to make sure that we have the right spots covered to where it’s actually performing what it wants.
11:29
Again, what we’re trying to do here is not just collect evidence, but we’re trying to have active deterrence.
So we want to have those choke points there.
Now, the second thing you do with almost every IP camera is you can actually set up a privacy mask.
So if I have a camera to where it is coming through and it’s covering the backyard and let’s say accidentally goes into the neighbor’s yard, we can actually put up on that camera privacy mask.
11:53
Now, in some cases it’ll blur it out, in other places it’ll black it out.
Each manufacturer will do different, but those do exist.
So you talk to your supplier or reach out to me and I’ll be able to help you kind of guide you through that.
The final one, specifically with audio recordings, make sure that you’re putting up enough signage.
12:10
Let people know there’s a secondary benefit of putting up signage saying this area is covered by CCTV or IP cameras or even audio recording.
First, it keeps you at a legal hot water.
Yay.
The second thing is it’s actually a mental deterrent against people doing something wrong.
12:29
The it’s super common back in the days, and I’m talking about like the 90s here, where people would put up fake dummy cameras and people would behave themselves because they thought they were real cameras.
Now it’s almost as expensive to put up dummy cameras, just put up normal cameras.
12:46
So my suggestion is put up real cameras.
But the deterrence there is that mental deterrence of like, oh, somebody’s watching.
I shouldn’t do that thing that I wanted to do.
You’re not going to stop everybody.
There are insane people.
There are people who are high on drugs that just don’t care, but the vast majority of younger people or people who are just trying to be weird and have fun, those will actually be deterrence for them.
13:16
There’s that little bit of extra like stop and think for a minute.
So get signage.
It’s actually really easy.
We do provide that ourselves to our clients.
So if you need some, let me know.
The next one we’re just talk about coming back to what we originally started, which which is the whole intrusion of your data and especially things like the Ring camera and the Flock stuff and all of that, which is confusing, I understand.
13:43
But here’s what it comes down to.
You usually have one of two options.
You have a cloud subscription storage or you have an, what we call on Prem, which means it’s the storage is on the premises, it’s on a recorder or a server on the site.
14:01
All, almost all of the DIY Bunnings style cameras will want you to join a subscription and they will store your data.
So there’s no device on site.
You’re plugging in the camera, it’s connecting to your Wi-Fi, it’s going up into the cloud and it will store the footage for you there on motion and things like that.
14:24
That’s cloud server.
Now on the professional side, we don’t do that really at all.
So on our side, we would install the camera, we would install a recorder in MVR.
So usually what it’s called, which is a network video recorder on site.
14:40
And then basically those cameras would stream to that recorder.
That recorder would store it.
Now, we can still give you access to that recorder remotely, so you can still view it from your phone when you’re overseas even, but you’re not paying a subscription for it.
14:57
It’s just using your Internet connection for you to talk to it and it’s stored on your site.
It is yours.
You can unplug it from the Internet, put it into a closet, put it into a safe and keep it forever if you want.
I’m not saying you should do that, that would be weird, but you can’t is what I’m saying.
15:15
Whereas if you get Ring, which is a lovely product, the actual cameras work really well for a DIY solution.
You don’t own your own data.
They have all your facial recognition, they have all of your stored footage unless you physically downloaded again from their server, you don’t own any of that.
15:34
None.
At any point.
They can turn that off and all you have is a camera that streams live if you can connect to it.
So what we want there is if you talk to professional, always.
If again, if you’re in Brisbane or Melbourne, reach out to me, I’ll be able to happily help you.
15:50
We do cover nationwide, but I use contractors for nationwide.
So just keep that in mind.
If you do, are you not in those areas and you do want to just meet somebody local?
I’m more than happy to actually make an introduction because I do have people in every major city that do great work with security.
16:07
But have a chat with them about on Prem storage, making sure that it’s not something that you don’t own.
You should own your storage, you should own your footage.
You should have the hard drive.
Anything happens, you can go back into that and look at it no matter what.
16:26
Your internet’s down, no matter what.
I can go to the NVR and I can watch the footage of what happened.
Somebody took a camera, literally, and smashed it up.
It’s OK.
I’ll have footage up until that camera absolutely is dead.
And even usually, if we’re being honest, it hangs there for a little while and still records.
16:47
You have that footage.
If it’s something to where your Wi-Fi goes out and all your cameras stop working, that’s no good.
It does not help you when you actually need it.
It’s just one of those things that makes you feel warm and fuzzy when it’s working, but when you need it, it’s not there.
So in closing, basically our security camera is an invasion of privacy.
17:10
Yes and no.
If you use them properly and you set them up properly, no.
You’re covering your own area, you’re taking care of your own property, you’re taking care of your own interest.
If you save all the footage onto your specific internal recording device, you own it.
17:29
It’s not going anywhere for anybody else.
However, on the other side, if you are using your cameras with I’ll intent, you’re taking your camera, you’re facing it into your neighbor’s window.
You’re saving all your footage up into the clouds so that it can be used by governments and police agencies and corporations to farm all of your data.
17:52
Facial recognition, how often you’re coming through, if you have a passport in your area, like all of those things, my suggestion is to avoid them.
Sometimes it’s the cheapest solution and there’s a reason why that is the cheapest solution because the product for them is not always the camera.
18:14
It’s like YouTube, the product on YouTube is not the video, you’re the product on YouTube when you watch these things.
So make sure that you take this information in.
If you have any questions, reach out.
All of our initial consultations and site assessments are free.
18:33
And again, if you’re in Brisbane or Melbourne and it’s just a short drive for one of my team to get to you and we’ll help you out and kind of walk you along the pathway to where you need to be.
That way you don’t need to do all the research yourself.
But thank you for sitting through this video, which is probably going to be decently long.
18:50
And again, if you have any questions, reach out.
Until then, you guys stay safe and we’ll talk to you soon.