Nelboy

I had read somewhere that domestic CCTV is exempt from the Data Protection Act due to a clause in one part of it (section 37, I think) so long as the recorded footage is kept on-site. Is this correct or have things changed?

well I already know that he hasn't liked the CCTV for some time, as when we've had to contact the police before and they've gone round to him he has then spent half an hour saying it's "frustrating" having cameras next to him and at one point he asked the officer "can't you just go round there and knock their heads in?". He fell out with the neighbours on his other side because their dog got in his garden once and he told them if it happened again then the dog would be going back over the fence on the end of a garden fork; also worth noting his marriage broke up, he told us during the lockdown thursday clapping thing.

what would be the best approach with regards to contacting the ICO? would it be a case of stating the problems we've been having and explaining why the system is set up as it is, and would there likely be a site visit to check and confirm if anything has to be altered? My neighbour also has a habit on a saturday of leaving his side door open from about 6pm for 3 or 4 hours - considering he tries to say that audio recording is invading his privacy, this seems an unusual behaviour.

The installation is not registered with the ICO. As far as I'm aware my neighbour does not have any evidence to prove breaches of privacy other than photos of our cameras such as the front PTZ facing down to look at our driveway (of which he then walks around from his driveway and stand in the middle of our driveway taking photos of our property) - the solicitors letter I have received is not even worded as such as "remove microphones" but rather to remove the talkback speakers under the belief that the speakers record audio. When I first set up audio recording it was in response to continued verbal abuse from my neighbour, and it was one point where he called me a pervert that I stated "i've had enough of your abuse, I'm turning on microphones" so it's not like he didn't have fair warning.... and even then when I did turn the microphones on, I wired the audio out from each microphone through a seperate output relay on the DS2 which was then configured to close when the respective camera was in 'Alarm' state - so only when a PIR sensor detected somebody moving on our property would audio then be recorded, and at any other time the audio was muted; the reason why the 'Mongee' hate crime had recorded audio is because I had just arrived home and so was walking along the side driveway. It is only because I had my bedroom window open and overheard him talking from his side of the street across the width of the road to a neighbour opposite and referring to me as a pedophile then I turned on an override switch to connect the microphones outside of a sensor activation - and even then the microphone for the side passage camera only picks up audio forward of it's position (unless he's raising his voice, banging something, or shouting), during the hot spell we had in June him and his kids were in their back garden on an afternoon and at weekends his parents would visit and sit on the patio talking (I checked the audio to make sure, and it didn't pick up anything); we live on a moderately busy road so noise from passing cars, aeroplanes (we have a vintage aerodrome not too far away so often have single and twin engine prop planes droning overhead), and suchlike mean I have the gain turned right low otherwise any loud noises (such as a 'sports' style car exhaust) distorts the audio and causes the DS2 to crash. We have been logging in a notepad incidents regarding our neighbour for at least a couple of years following advice from the police; obviously hate crime incidents regarding something that is said don't really get anywhere wituout evidence to back it up as it becomes a "he said x" "no I didn't" type affair. I had been in the process of looking for a newer DVR that could record HD analogue and/or IP cameras with the intention of replacing the Spectra 4 at the front with a pano camera so there would be no moving parts. This situation has blown up to this level immediately after he caused criminal damage to our property by breaking in to the shed that I was in the process of building. In a video taken in October 2021 he states "I know ways around the law that you don't", so it makes me wonder if this is an attempt to invalidate the CCTV evidence we have against him so he can get off the hook.

I have had CCTV on my home for roughly 7 years due to threatening behaviour from my next door neighbour. I am classified as a "vulnerable adult" and live with somebody who has clinical anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The behaviour from my neighbour has meant I have had to add-on to the CCTV in a piecemeal manner over the years - initially it was a case that my neighbour didn't like me welding in my own garage and stated he'd "knock my head off" if I did it again, so I fitted up cameras including a PTZ on the front corner of the property *BUT* with no recording facility as the cameras were intended purely as a deterrent. For a few years he made no comments about the CCTV, even during the first covid lockdown which included the weekly Thursday clapping in which we was perfectly fine and talkative. During 2021 he suddenly developed an aversion to the CCTV, he started referring to me as a pedophile for having cameras up and started insiting his children weren't using the back garden due to my cameras (total nonsense), and due to this sudden increase in hostility I had to fit a DVR - due to a very low budget I reached out to contacts and was offered a Dedicated Micros DS2, which I know some folks will laugh at but it has done the job up to now. In order to appease my neighbour I moved the front PTZ away from the front corner of the property so that it could no longer look from the front down the side and towards the rear garages, and in order to still be able to view our side driveway / passage I fitted a static camera above our side porch facing forward to the street - initially this was a fairly old box camera which had no night vision and no privacy zone function (it was only by placing a bit of black tape over the front glass that I could shield off coverage of his side yard), and so I eventually replaced it with a small Vista fixed mini dome; the mini dome has privacy zones set up so that it is not possible to see anybody walking around in the side yard (the camera has no optical zoom applied and the recording is roughly 700x500px so is low resolution). I had my Nikon DS5100 set up on a tripod to act as protection whilst I was fitting the DS2 DVR in case my neighbour started up anything, and I have a video from 2021 where he tried starting up another argument, and in it he states "if you took that camera down ((meaning the front PTZ which was on the corner)) and replaced it with a smaller one I'd be ever so happy and have nothing to complain about" - and this is what I did. At first he was OK with the front PTZ being away from the corner, but after a few weeks elapsed he resumed referring to me as a pedophile, a freak, a wierdo, a pervert, and suchlike - this has included him shouting a phrase equivalent to "go back to where you came from" as he believes we used to live on a council estate (which is incorrect). On one occasion he stood on his back doorstep shouting and bawling at me "MONGEE MONGEE YOU'RE A F*CKING MONGEE", and as I have Autism I deem that to be a hate crime so I told him I'd had enough and would turn on audio recording. In January 2023 I came onto my driveway early one morning and my neighbour sees me from his upstairs hall window, which at that point he was leaving the blinds open 24 hours a day 7 days a week even at night time, so he saw my side security light come on and then sneaks downstairs - he accused me of theft (baseless accusation) and then says to me "you're a frigging mongee and it's only because you've got Aspergers and you're a bit f*cking doolally that nobody does owt about you"; I told him that had all just been recorded and he goes "I don't care, do you want - revenge is sweet and it's coming". That evidence was seen by the police including the audio, and the officer tells him he has committed a hate crime which is a criminal offense but my neighbour gaslighted the officer trying to blame us for his actions.... in the months since then he has directed comments at the side passage camera now he knows it has audio recording, and at the front he has come home in the car with his teenage kids and gone "smile you're on camera, you're on pedo camera", he has continued to refer to me as a "nutcase" and as "the muffin man". He regularly stands on tiptoes to look over the side fence and onto our property, even trying to see if we're in the back garden (on two previous occasions I have seen him standing as close to our back gate as he can to try and hear what we're talking about in our garden); he will put things in his car and then walk along the public footpath a few steps to take a look down the length of our side passage; and when I started digging footings for a new garden shed at the back of our property he poured concrete into part of those footings which was then followed by taking paving slabs from where he had them stored and placing 6 or 7 of them against my fence so as to prevent me removing the fence to put the new shed in place. When I did start builging the new shed, within 3 hours of me completing the first wall he had kicked down part of it - the next day I had repaired and reinforced it and he kicked it a further 2 times, the last time has caused damage which will cost in excess of £200 to properly repair. The first time he kicked down the wall section I was inside the house and saw it on the CCTV monitor, and I turned on the external speaker and stated "you are being recorded on CCTV, any damage will be reported to police". His claim is that because I had to push away the paving slabs that he'd deliberately put against my fence to cause a nuisance it had broken one of them (two at most, though since then I've had a look from the shed roof and there are additional slabs broken which were not done by me, the breaks eminating from a central point as if to suggest impact by a hammer), though I had contacted police before this of which the officer had stated that because he was causing criminal damage by putting the slabs against our fence we were free to remove them. However, after kicking my shed wall for the 3rd time my CCTV caught my neighbour stating "that guy's gonna pay for his debt if I ever get my hands on him" which I perceive to be a threat of violence against myself. We have now received a solicitors letter in the post in which our neighbour is using Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to claim our CCTV is illegal (intrusion of privacy etc), and wants all cameras at the front and side of our property removed including the audio recording, claiming the cameras record video "in" his back garden. In the past I have tried to tell my neighbour that his back garden is not recorded and I even offered to take photos of the screen showing the various camera feeds, and he responded "I don't care, I don't wanna know"; and we have had police officers view the footage and have told us there are no laws being broken. The side passage camera has privacy zones in place, and the camera viewing our garage door points downwards so that the cutoff point is at the top of the fence. The microphone for the side passage camera points forward towards the street. Before turning on audio recording I did look at information on the ICO page regarding CCTV audio recording, and this page stated that whilst it is recommended to disable audio recording there are certain circumstances where it is allowed for the purposes of collecting evidence.. I have also recently seen this thread here in which a comment on page 2 suggests recording audio is legal... A house diagonally opposite me has a doorbell camera fitted, and I know these record audio as well as having a wide-angle lens fitted which will be recording the front of our properties including that of my neighbour. Given that am the victim of recurring harassement from my neighbour, which includes threats of violence and verbal hate crime, would this fall into a category in which audio recording would be deemed legitimate? The evidence from my CCTV system is currently with police as part of a live ongoing investigation; as previously with the 'Mongee' incident and previous incidents we had decided not to press charges as we have to still live next door to this person - but since he has now deliberately vandalised our property we have now agreed with police to retrospectively press charges for those offenses, and so at the moment I don't want to move or remove any of the CCTV equipment as I worry it may be deemed as either an admission of wrongdoing or altering evidence on my part (plus obviously I don't want to remove any CCTV equipment anyway given his threating and abusive behaviour towards us)

There is also a DS-1006KI controller that I've spotted (new), and I'm wondering if that would work a DS-7308HUHI-K4 DVR system, as that system does have seperate terminal inputs marked for a keyboard controller. Ideally I'd like the main monitor to have joystick/keyboard control over the cameras and DVR, even if then a KVM extender is installed for the lesser-used monitors 2 and 3

yeah I thought the KVM type looked more likely to be what's required. Obviously I know ebay isn't ideal for everything, but my budget is ridiculously small so I'm kinda forced to go along that route. My health deteriorated so I've not got a proper income.

doing a quick ebay search for "HDMI USB cat5" brings up these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175718230837?hash=item28e99f6b35:g:-uYAAOSwkZtjd2UJ&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4JtiLlOECqEPpJldzHAHguHXI5OVg%2BXWVU3laalyjW4PeAOugWmc%2B0ylH%2Bk4OsBxVBKaP9xsYPyHw91bxCe9iufy626%2Bzzgs0sLdVbIJ%2BsK20BAnWieiOhkGIAQbB6jN%2B604j1GZQlz5c%2BIWraFYDGwAKO%2B2xUhiUdgpCvQChIoq0KpaiXFnqvTTv9WsbDuxS204uviFLKG8rRhtFw8Rdw8zxaIn5ZN1ck2f%2BZhmXXmbCQQoj21dwHVk9JuvqKPUJFSpxuY%2B8UhoAD2d4yMf%2BK8mlqNkDsm9HksBDX217Xh6|tkp%3ABk9SR86q7MiNYg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266275243351?hash=item3dff3dc557:g:txsAAOSw0edkai4h&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4MmQJwwtWg%2BYudWRyu%2BG7Hyb2LqhSpIU47nXttEVxX%2FCV8OW6R8L9dr9cKNIzS1l9GLobaMzPAm3F89v2%2BDYzcdS6ZRGFufLrwI9MNZqGMKhL3KiIXdPMgfGWZaNqe93skaDZban1nGPpF6YoCVdjnEL40zGC8DvgWOq0mJs2aphXqB3CiQxDANIWX5JmZ8M1dqIACZ3vim4kJNlOj0YoElbEBRUvFw3XpIxj8o6dR1Vl7DyL5YTFwczED3TSN6fwm9HPVBi%2FqxyGTmPjiEcnBxiBITT1nEbFn8Hvld5dXU0|tkp%3ABk9SR86q7MiNYg ... and the second one does look like it'd do what you describe

It's worth noting that the main reason I'm looking at upgrading to HD Analogue is for a quick installation - any time I have to do any work at the side or front of the property I get the next door neighbour taking photos of me either from an upstairs window or from his side passage (sometimes getting his kids to take photos) or otherwise making threats, so the less time I have to spend down the side or front doing wiring then the better. All my conduit routes are full to capacity and so an IP system would require a full rewire of my conduit; the front camera can be wired to an ethernet switch without too much bother, but the front camera is PTZ and requires at least 4 alarm inputs as well as aux relays. I already have a suitable AHD PTZ ball type camera ready for installation at the front. The front PTZ uses PIR's in order to position the camera suitably, including telephoto for the front door. There is a seperate PTZ dome at the back as there are multiple external doors in different locations for different outbuildings as well as the back of the main house. I have wondered whether panoramic fisheye cameras would do more or less the same job as the PTZ's if I had to go down the route of an IP based system which didn't have PTZ functionality; but that still doesn't solve the fact of the DVR being located remotely from the monitoring points. I dunno whether Axis, Bosch or Vista offer Analogue HD DVR's that may be suitable - I'd require something with at least 4 alarm inputs but ideally more, search by activity as well as quick rewind or search by time/date, at least 2 audio recording inputs but ideally more, at least 2 aux outputs, ideally remote keyboard/joystick support, day/night schedule ideally (so as to provide different alarm functions), network support, Pelco P 9600 baud RS485 bus, at least 1 HDMI output - if such an output can be split for multiple monitors this would be OK but otherwise then a seperate output for at least 1 other monitor would be required (possibly 2) - these additional monitor(s) currently only have a CVBS input. Additional features such as privacy masking/blurring, intrustion detection, corridor mode would be a bonus.

The problem with a full system install is I don't really have the budget for that, this is why I've been using a DS2 up to this point. I was not aware of USB/HDMI combiners, do these work to amplify the signal so as to allow for longer cable runs? Doing a quick search only brings up things which plug into a phone's USB socket to provide a HDMI output....

Hello, due to my neighbour's ever-erratic behaviour including mooning at me it now looks like a full upgrade of my home CCTV system to something HD is in order. I have a number of Concept Pro and QVIS mini done and eyeball/turret cameras which are 4-mode compatiable (CVBS/AHD/TVI/CVI) and these are giving a decent picture even for the SD recording of my current DVR - my current DVR being a Dedicated Micros DS2. The unit is very good for functionality, apart from the audio recording being a tiny bit out of sync with the images, but the approx 700x500px recording resolution isn't really suitable anymore and neither is the obscure file format in which it exports footage.. I am looking for a DVR which will record analogue HD and be backwards compatiable with SD analogue so my current cameras can be used and upgraded piecemeal as and when my small budget will allow. I currently have my eyes on a Hikvision DS-7216HUHI-F2/S or a DS-7208HUHI-F1/N which seems to offer similar functionality to my DS2: scheduled day/night modes, alarm inputs, relay outputs, panic mode, event database search.... but my main query is can a remote keyboard/joystick controller be attached to these units or can they only be controlled by a USB mouse? My DS2 is mounted in a different location from the monitoring station due to noise levels and wiring constraints, so I need a DVR which can be mounted in the same place and be controlled remotely, ideally by means of a joystick type controller due to cameras 1 and 6 being full PTZ. If a DS-1004KI keyboard is compatiable then would it be connected in the "D+/D-" terminals in the DVR? ... In addition, do the OSD controls for PTZ allow for "WASH" and "WIPE" functions on the camera (ie, Aux1 and Aux2)? Three of my cameras use the WASH command to switch on an external speaker for the talkback function (there's no need for camera 6 in the back garden to boom out an audio challenge if it's somebody wandering around in the front garden that needs to be addressed) and two of my cameras use the WIPE command to toggle lights on or off whilst the third camera uses the toggle to activate a mag lock. If only a USB mouse can be used to control the system, has anybody tried 'extending' the reach of the mouse, so to say, by running the USB data lines over a wiring distance of about 25-30m and providing a 5v power supply at the far end so that the mouse is 25-30m away from the DVR but potentially still operates it? Thanks in advance ... As a side note, the Concept Pro mini domes have an electronic zoom lens but this is not controlled by the on-camera buttons - do these generally accept HIK-C coax protocol or some other format? I know they don't use Pelco-C coax protocol as I've tried it.

well as I say, it's only for a couple months. It's already caught my neighbour pouring concrete onto my property and leaning paving slabs up on my fence. I'm looking to upgrade the main system to something which uses AHD/TVI/CVI inputs as I've got a few Concept Pro cams which are fairly decent even in backward compatiability CVBS mode, and if I can get a decent system which would also allow for IP cameras then I could get a cheap one off ebay and plug it into my expansion router.... but that's for a different thread

true.... the intention is only to use it for a couple months whilst I do my building work so I'll probably just stick to using the web-based interface and save any further hassle.....

yeah it seems like out of the two possible outcomes from changing to an Eero, connections being better or worse, thankfully it has worked out better than previously. The DVR is by Dynamic CCTV (EZHD series) which has been discontinued for a while, but the manual makes reference to software called "DVR Remote" to view live and previously recorded images on a networked PC... obviously that program name is incredibly generic so doing a google search doesn't really bring anything up. I tried FTP'ing to the DVR using the default admin login but the connection was refused - the thought being that maybe the 'DVR Remote' software is stored on the device; dunno whether it's possible to Telnet into it or not. For the time being though I can view images on the connected screen in my outbuilding and then transfer any video onto USB stick - which I've already had to do as my neighbour decided he didn't like me marking the property boundary so poured a load of concrete over it. The Eero is located in the same place that the old router was btw.

it seems to be working now... the wifi coverage of the Eero cuts out just before the outbuildings, which is where the 2nd router kicks in