Live Streaming Security Camera

What it is

A mains-powered camera built into an everyday object so it does not read as a security camera in a domestic room. It streams live video to your phone and can record continuously or only when it detects motion.

What people use it for

• Your own home. Checking on the property while you are away, and having a record if something happens.
• Your own business premises. Storerooms, tills, reception, back entrances.
• Tradespeople and visitors in your home. Where you have had property go missing and want to know.
• Deterrence and insurance. A recorded stream is often what an insurer asks for.

The law in New South Wales

Under section 8 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) it is an offence to install, use or maintain an optical surveillance device on premises or a vehicle to record a person without consent, where doing so involves entering the premises without permission or interfering with the vehicle or premises.

Filming inside a place you own or lawfully occupy is generally permitted. The offences arise when the camera goes somewhere you have no right to put it, or when it is pointed at somewhere a person is entitled to privacy.

Two further provisions matter and are frequently overlooked. Under the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), section 91K makes it an offence to film a person engaged in a private act without consent, and section 91L covers filming a person’s private parts. Those apply regardless of who owns the property. A camera in a bathroom, a bedroom you do not share, or a change area is an offence even in your own house.

What you must not use it for

• Not in a bathroom, toilet, change room, or any bedroom that is not your own.
• Not in someone else’s home, including a former partner’s, and including a house you used to live in but have moved out of.
• Not in a share house or rental common area without telling the other occupants.
• Not pointed into a neighbour’s property.

If you are recording an area where employees or visitors will be captured, tell them. In a workplace, covert surveillance is separately regulated by the Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (NSW), which generally requires written notice to employees in advance, and covert workplace surveillance requires a magistrate’s authority.

If the question is what someone is doing away from your property

That is surveillance and it needs a licensed investigator, not a camera. Call 1300 773 293.