Scottish Court Awards Damages For CCTV Camera Pointed At Neighbor's House (boingboing.net)

AmiMoJo quotes a report from BoingBoing: Edinburgh's Nahid Akram installed a CCTV system that let him record his downstairs neighbors Debbie and Tony Woolley in their back garden, capturing both images and audio of their private conversations, with a system that had the capacity to record continuously for five days. A Scottish court has ruled that the distress caused by their neighbor's camera entitled the Woolleys to $21,000 (17,000 British Pounds) in damages, without the need for them to demonstrate any actual financial loss. The judgment builds on a 2015 English court ruling against Google for spying on logged out Safari users, where the users were not required to show financial losses to receive compensation for private surveillance.

Comments

do I understand it right?

[dimko]

If CCTV cam now records any part of someone's property its autowin in court? Did someone think to sue State of London for all those cameras around? One or two are bound to record someone's property.

Re:do I understand it right?

[rmdingler]

My fear is that this is the penalty for confusing the right of the individual to spy on the neighbor versus the obligation of the government to do so.

Re: do I understand it right?

[AmiMoJo]

I remember a story on the news about this years ago. Some camera operators perving through the window of some young woman's bedroom. They had the black boxes covering it, but found that if they just rotated the camera to the left a little the boxes stayed in place on screen and the window slid out from under them.

Re:but

[whoever57]

The solution that was found in this case seems quite effective: get you neighbor to pay you approx $21k for the privilege, and probably more if the cameras and mics don't come down.