Unfortunately, crooks aren’t all stupid so putting on a wizard hat and threatening to turn them into frogs if they trespass on my property won’t accomplish much. Contrary to what their brazen acts may lead you to believe, though, they are a fairly skittish breed. What that means is that burglars like to weigh their risks and, given two potential payouts of near equal value, will always go after the one that exposes them to the least amount of risk. It’s for that reason that I’ve always advocated the message that you don’t need to turn your home into a fortress to be safe. You just need to present a less inviting target than your neighbors.

When a crook cases a neighborhood he’s looking for clues to a good payout. How well-to-do is your neighborhood? What kind of car is in your driveway? Are there empty electronics equipment boxes waiting for trash pickup and implying you’ve recently purchased some expensive goodies? How well kept is your yard? If you leave your garage open, what kind of goodies do they see inside?

If all the clues are inviting, the next step is to assess risk. What hours do you keep? When do you get home from work? How visible is your home from the street and from your neighbor’s homes? How well lit is your property? Are there places such as bushes they can hide while they work on breaking in? Do you have signs up proclaiming you’re protected by a security company? Do you have surveillance cameras?

Now addressing all those other things is beyond the scope of this article, but I do want to discuss fake security cameras because they really do add tremendous value. While the ideal solution would be professionally installed and monitored surveillance cameras, many people are simply priced out of the market. Fake security cameras are a magic trick designed to present the illusion that your home is obscenely well protected and not worth the effort, thereby prompting the crook to move on in search of softer targets. As with any magic trick, if you botch the illusion or misdirect, your audience will see right through your trick, so it pays to do it right.

You see, a criminal can never really know for certain if the footage from your camera is stored in-house or fed off-site. If it’s recorded in-house, he can simply make a point of stealing the recording device that’s capturing his work, denying you of any proof of the crime. He can make an educated guess, though, and if the juice is worth the squeeze, may still take the risk to get at your possessions if he thinks the likelihood high that the footage is stored onsite.

So what hints does a crook look for and what can you do to make your fake security camera appear to be as authentic as possible? Start by being reasonable. A modest home in a lower class neighborhood is not going to have four or five high-end cameras protecting it. It either screams gang-run-meth-lab or totally-fake-cameras. Neither is a message you want to send. Obviously, an upper class home in an upper class neighborhood could get away with multiple cameras covering every possible angle, but if you’re rolling in cash already, you should probably spring for the real thing anyway.

Pay attention to the details. A security camera without a cable coming out of the back of it won’t fool anybody. Sure, maybe it transmits its signal wirelessly, but it has to get power from somewhere, right? A box with a lens isn’t convincing. The best fake security cameras will always look like they are wired in some way.

An illuminated LED won’t hurt either. A camera with an illuminated LED (LED = light emitting diode but just think of it as a small light) accomplishes two things - it draws attention to the camera (in case your criminals are near sighted) and it presents an illusion of powered authenticity. Good fake cameras generally come with a blinking or steady-state LED powered by batteries which, due to the low power requirements of LEDs, don’t need to be replaced often at all.

As a final tip, reinforce the message with the placement of a professional security sign. Avoid using made-for-fake stickers or security signs if possible. A savvy criminal will recognize them as fake on sight but will believe a big name like Brinks. Contact a friend or neighbor who already has a legitimate security company monitoring their property and ask them if you could pay them to order an additional yard sign and window stickers on your behalf. Some security companies may sell them to you without requiring an actual system installation but most will want you to buy more than just their signs.

A friend of mine, the kind of guy who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos, actually went so far as to request an appraisal and estimate from a legitimate security company. After the representative did her walk through and provided him with a price, he advised that it was far more than he could afford but that he’d like to buy some signs from her. She declined until he pointed out that it would be free advertising for the company and that he would sing their praises to his neighbors, possibly bringing her some legitimate sales. The representative agreed and provided him with front and back yard signs as well as window stickers. True to his word, he actually got her two legitimate contracts in his neighborhood in the months that followed.

The point of all of this is that you can do a great deal to deter criminals with the use of a fake security camera, but that you must invest a bit of common sense in your approach for the best results. Fake security cameras, in and of themselves, are just a start. Pulling all the pieces together sells the illusion and leaves a potential criminal with a decision to make. Does he risk it on what appears to be a very secure dwelling, or move a few houses down to what are clearly easier pickings? 9 times out of 10, he’ll make the smart move and leave you alone.

One common lament is that images appear washed out or too dark. While even modestly priced wireless surveillance cameras automatically adjust for various lighting conditions, there are limits to what they can accomplish and scene complexity (think various lighting conditions, not clutter) can be a real headache. 

If you are attempting to capture interior images such as with a nanny cam or a pet cam, avoid placing the camera so that it points directly at a window. In this image, the camera is pointed directly at a window and, during the day, is adjusting for the prevalent lighting in its view. The result is that the exterior view through the window is appropriately lit, but the interior is completely dark. You can make out the silhouette of a lamp, but little else. It’s not unlike wearing sunglasses. 

When you’re outside, sunglasses help moderate the light your eyes receive. Walk into the interior of a building after being outside on a bright day while still wearing those sunglasses and you’re practically blind. Until your eyes adjust to the new lighting conditions, you’ll be lucky to see anything without taking those sunglasses off. Had you not yet gone out into that bright light and put on your sunglasses, the interior of the building would still be darkened by your stylish shades but not as dramatically as had you just walked in from the bright outdoors. 

By angling the camera away from the bright window, the sensor adjusts for the new lighting conditions and the scene becomes properly lit. But even in this picture there’s a flaw that can be anything from a mild to moderate nuisance and that’s the glare from the window bleeding into the image. Even a sliver of light from the window is enough to cause this problem. Again, if possible, this can be avoided by eliminating the window entirely from view. Another option is to ensure that the unlit elements of the room such as the walls and furniture make up the majority of the scene. You’ll have to experiment, but this approach can “trick” your camera into adjusting its sensitivity for the predominant light level (the dim room) rather than for the small section of view that includes the window. 

Not surprisingly, the reverse of this scenario can also cause problems. Let’s say you have an interior surveillance camera that happens to also capture what’s going on just outside your window to where your car is parked. The room gets plenty light and the camera works fine during the day, capturing both interior and exterior activity. One night, vandals damage your car. Justice will be served, you think, and review the camera footage. What you wind up with is a nice bright view of the interior of your home and a pitch black window with no view of what happened outside to your car. 

Again, your eye is a near perfect analog here. If you have a dark section outside your home (an unlit back yard, for example) wait until night falls, ensure all the lights are on in your room and then take a look out the window. How much can you really see? Most likely, you can only see a reflection of the room you’re standing in. Even with that complex computer inside your skull compensating for what you now know is going on, you will still find it impossible to see more than a few feet beyond your window to the darkened yard beyond. There are two remedies for this. 1) Equalize the interior and exterior lighting conditions by either brightening the back yard or dimming the lights in the room. 2) Move your face right up to the window and shade your eyes from the light behind you. The exact same solutions would apply to your camera. 

Regardless its ability to adjust to varying light conditions, there are limits to any camera. A day-light camera aimed directly at the sun outside your window will provide a completely washed-out image (if it isn’t destroyed entirely). Though rated to work in daylight, it can only take so much. A night-vision camera is even more sensitive to light. While it may do fine monitoring the exterior of a home, the bright wash of car headlights or a street lamp in its view may render it useless. 

If you’ve bought a nanny cam in the hopes of keeping your babysitter honest, your focus will probably be on discreetly placing it where she won’t see it. Don’t let simple things such as a window ruin your whole effort. Avoid placing the camera opposite (and facing) windows where daylight or even light from cars at night can ruin your objective. Your best placement will be a discreet location facing into the room in the same (or nearly same) direction as the greatest source of light (be that sunlight through a window or a bright lamp in the room). Point your wireless surveillance camera directly at any light source and you’ll likely have nothing but audio for your money.

Before we even talk about wireless network cameras (sometimes called Wireless IP Cameras), it helps to understand a little bit about what a network is and how devices on a network function. Think of a network as a locally or distributed collection of devices which are capable of communicating with one-another. If you have two computers at home but sharing a single internet connection, you have a small, local area network or LAN. Without even leaving your home, data can travel from one of your computers to your router and on to the other computer allowing you to share files. In simplest terms, a wide area network or WAN is distinguished from a LAN by both the distance between the devices and the way data is packaged before being moved from one device on the network to another.

Every device that is capable of speaking on a network (LAN or WAN) needs to be able to distinguish itself from other devices as a unique entity. In the same way your house has a specific number associated with a specific street in a specific city in a specific country, devices on a network need addresses to determine how to get traffic from one device to another. Now, the simple fact is that I could write tens of thousands of pages on the way devices communicate over LANS and WANS. You tech-heads out there are going to have to forgive me for some serious oversimplification as this is meant for general consumption. No chatter about public/private IPs, natting or subnetting here. The only networking feature I want to cover (in very simple form) is IP addressing.

All you need to accept is that, whether set by the user, assigned by your internet provider or a dhcp server, every computer or network device that needs to speak to another computer or network device is assigned an address known as an IP address which helps to identify it as a unique device. This address is called an IP address. Now remember what we’ve covered so far as we’ll come back to it shortly.

Your wireless network camera is similar to your laptop only without a fancy operating system or games installed. The similarity is in its ability to attach to your local area network through your router at home much like a computer.  It should go without saying that, in order to take advantage of the wireless  element of a wireless network camera, you’ll have to have a wireless router capable of communicating with the camera.

The way this works is that the camera is assigned an IP address as mentioned above. The software to operate the camera is installed on your home computer. Once configured and talking to one another, you can control your wireless camera from your computer and the camera will actually transmit (wirelessly) the images it captures directly to your computer for recording!

But wait! The fun’s not over yet. Not only can you view recorded footage from your home computer, you can also “check in” on your camera from anywhere in the world where you can get an internet connection, much like those PC Anywhere ads you may see in which people can remotely control their home or office computers from another location. With just the launch of a browser and the IP address of your camera, you can literally “browse” your current home surveillance situation from just about anywhere in the world on any internet connected computer!

What differentiates these cameras from other options is that many surveillance camera systems you might be interested in purchasing require more than just the camera to truly be functional. We’ll cover wireless surveillance systems in greater detail in a future post but, for now, just recognize that having a camera without having the means to capture, store and review its footage is rather pointless. There are often other capture and storage devices required and they can cost you some extra coin. Furthermore, you lose the opportunity to remotely view and control your cameras. Wireless network cameras get around this problem but requiring only the wireless network you already have at home. What if you don’t have a wireless network and are, instead, plugging physically into the Ethernet ports on your router? That’s fine too. Most wireless network cameras I’ve seen sold have a built in Ethernet jack to allow you to make it a “wired” camera. You can save a lot of money, though, by simply buying a non-wireless model. Alternatively, you can purchase an inexpensive wireless router, plug in using Ethernet cables for your computer but take advantage of the wireless capability of the router for just your camera.

As with any technology, there are some things to keep in mind as you shop for wireless network cameras. Radio signals used to transmit your wireless signal can be interfered with by too many obstructions or by electrical interference. My own network camera, which I believe I’ll write a review about in my next post, has been very forgiving in this regard. It resides about 3 feet from an archaic television that probably leaks more radiation than Chernobyl and is 3 stories removed from the wireless router I have in my dungeon office. For all the talk of interference due to obstructions, mine seems to have no such problems but your mileage may vary.

So do we recommend wireless network cameras? Well, yes, but that depends on your needs. My wireless network camera is for indoor use only. I would not recommend it for outdoor use unless you feel like throwing away $300 every time it rains. Aside from that one annoyance, I love it and would recommend it to anybody assuming their requirements match its capabilities. For more about my network camera and wireless surveillance cameras in general, check back soon.

Our previous post listed some states in which surveillance laws apply but these dealt specifically with hidden surveillance cameras. The questions we’re addressing here are ones in which the presence of the camera is not intentionally hidden and the footage being captured is outdoors. That’s significant. In one of our previous posts we discussed privacy rights as apply to public and private settings. In a private setting such as a hotel room, bathroom, locker room or in one’s own home, laws are designed to protect an individual’s reasonable right to privacy. Outdoors, however, in public settings, things change substantially.

When considering your rights, ask yourself the following questions:

Does my camera look into a person’s window AND provide a clear view of activity inside their home? If so, you are invading their right to privacy on at least some level. While it might be argued that the occupant has an obligation to close their blinds if they’re going to be walking around in the nude or something lest they be seen by a passerby, they still have the right to expect a reasonable degree of privacy. Where the camera violates this right is that it is ongoing, constant surveillance and, therefore, crosses the line in violation of several “peeping Tom” laws. By the same token, a security camera may well have a neighbor’s window in its field of view but the resolution at such a distance is so terrible as to make any claims to privacy invasion nearly laughable. Ask yourself how easily you might be able to set your neighbor’s mind at ease here by letting them see just how distorted the view of (or into) their home really is.

Does my camera overlook only the exterior of the person’s home or yard with no reasonable capability of seeing activity inside the house? This question brings us back to the private vs. public settings issue. Under the law, I’d be perfectly within my rights to sit on my porch and stare across the street at your front yard for as long as I felt the urge to do so. While certainly creepy, I wouldn’t be violating your rights in the process. By the same extension, it’s likely my camera isn’t either, particularly if there’s been no effort made to hide the presence of said camera. Were you to feel committed to taking me to court over the matter, you’d likely lose. That’s particularly the case if I could show that your home simply falls into the line of view of my camera as I try to protect my own property and no effort is being made to single you out.

As the unwanted and unintended subject of somebody else’s surveillance efforts, you may not have any recourse but to accept that you fall into the field of view of your neighbor’s camera. Providing you aren’t sneaking bodies in and out of your home at night, what are you really worried about here? Everybody in view of your home can see your front yard. You should also stop and consider what your neighbor is trying to accomplish. Again, if they are only trying to protect their own property but your home falls into the line of sight, ask to see an example of the footage resolution. If it doesn’t provide a clear view of activity going on inside your home then you likely have little or no legal recourse. You might even want to consider the bonus of knowing that your neighbor is inadvertently protecting your home at the same time he’s protecting his own. Should your home be burglarized, his camera might well make the difference between recovering your possessions or never seeing them again.

Regardless whether you are the viewer or the viewee, consider consulting an attorney if you are still uncertain where you stand but committed to finding a solution. Again, this blog can’t possibly cover all possible circumstances in all possible jurisdictions dealing with wireless surveillance cameras. Though your lawyer may tell you nothing you haven’t already read here, laws may be different in your neck of the woods.

Before we get to the states, we should define the words “private places.” A private place is simply one where a person may reasonably expect to be safe from unauthorized surveillance. For example, several states have laws prohibiting the use of some kind of video surveillance system in specific circumstances such as in a dressing room, locker room or restroom or where the intent of the owner/installer is for the purpose of viewing a person in a state of partial or full nudity. 

We’ll elaborate where possible, but it’s absolutely essential that you do your own local research to ensure the accuracy of what is written here. Laws change with time, after all. Also keep in mind that laws are somewhat loosely defined in some places meaning that, while it may seem legal to use a hidden surveillance system, where you place it and what your intended purpose may be could make the difference between the act being legal and illegal. 

It is due to the sometimes loose wording of the laws that we will repeatedly emphasize here that you always keep the privacy of your subjects in mind when you decide to use a wireless surveillance camera. If your intent is to catch your visiting friend or your babysitter in a state of undress, using the shower or toilet, you will likely be breaking a law of some kind regardless what state you live in. Be ethical and ensure you follow all federal, state and local laws when installing or using a hidden camera of any kind. 

• Alabama - video surveillance systems are prohibited in private places. Placing one in a hotel lobby is acceptable but not in a hotel room, for example. 
• Arkansas - video surveillance cameras may be placed in public places. Recording or viewing of individuals in private locations without their permission violates the law. 
• California - though a bit cryptic, California law states that video recording of confidential communications is prohibited without the consent of the parties being recorded. 
• Delaware - hidden surveillance cameras are prohibited without consent of the subjects monitored. 
• Georgia - consent of all parties is required if they are to be recorded on a video surveillance system or photographed. 
• Hawaii - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed. 
• Illinois - If you want to use home surveillance systems here, ensure they DO NOT have sound recording capability as the law specifically emphasizes silent video recording is not prohibited. 
• Kansas - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed. 
• Maine - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed.
• Michigan - Hidden surveillance cameras in private places are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed. 
• Minnesota - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed.
• New Hampshire - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed. 
• New Jersey - no prohibition against hidden surveillance cameras. 
• North Carolina - has no specific laws regarding hidden cameras in private places. 
• South Carolina - though hidden surveillance cameras are not specifically referenced, SC states that a “peeping tom” under the statute is a person who “peeps through windows, doors or other like places” on another’s premises for the purpose of “spying upon or invading the privacy” of others or for “any conduct of a similar nature that tends to invade the privacy of others.” - To translate, their laws are pretty loosely defined but if your objective is to protect your child on your own premises or monitor against illicit activity occurring on your property, you probably fall outside this definition. 
• South Dakota - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed.
• Tennessee - another “peeping tom” statute which forbids a person to “knowingly photograph or cause to be photographed” in a private place. 
• Utah - hidden cameras are prohibited without the consent of the subjects to be recorded or viewed. 
• Washington - hidden surveillance cameras permitted as long as they do not capture sound.

We’ll remind you again that we are not responsible for the ethical or legal use of any video surveillance systems you put in place. The list above is a guide and not a writ-in-stone legal reference. Laws may change. It is your responsibility to ensure you are in compliance with federal, state and local laws regarding the possession or use of any of the systems or devices referenced in this blog.

My first real lesson in home security was the worst kind. Actually, I take that back. It was the best kind because, as lessons go, the hardest ones stick and this was a hard one. It the first day of my high school sophomore year. You can imagine I wasn’t particularly thrilled to be getting up to walk to the bus stop. A quick shower, a change into some suitably conforming close I felt were rebellious at the time, and downstairs I went for some cereal. 

The first thing I noticed was the little black and white TV my father kept in the kitchen was gone. And by gone, I don’t mean delicately moved to another location. I mean there was a conspicuous absence where the TV used to be and nothing new in its place. I hollered up to my father to ask if he’d moved the TV and he yelled back down asking what the hell I was talking about. Dad was never much of a morning person but he wasn’t on his way to his first day of school so I didn’t feel much like catering to his grumpiness and just yelled the same question back up the stairs. “No” was the reply. 

“Well, in that case, we’ve been robbed.” 

Ok, technically we hadn’t been robbed which is defined as larceny by force or violence. We’d been burglarized. But the end result was largely the same. My father stormed down the stairs with all his morning rage directed at me for, heck, I don’t know… perhaps for just being the convenient target at hand. When he too saw the TV missing, he asked what kind of prank I was pulling and warned that he was in no mood for it. It was the sincere indifference on my face, the kind of expression only a rebellious teenager can pull off, that convinced him I had nothing to do with the missing TV. A short investigation of the rest of the home quickly revealed the truth. We had, indeed, been burglarized. 

Missing from the house were several other TVs, silverware, stereo equipment and other valuables. Also stolen were our dignity and our false sense of security. Spared were our lives. After all, this crime occurred with us in the house. But from this, we learned some lessons, some good, some not so good. 

The first thing my father did after finishing with the police was not to run out and buy a wireless surveillance camera, though that would be a convenient result for this blog. Unfortunately, the technology didn’t exist back then. No, he bought a shotgun. He’d served in the military and knew how to handle firearms, but he was an intelligence guy, not a battle-hardened grunt. To this day, I find myself questioning what would have happened had he confronted a criminal. Would he have had the nerve to pull the trigger? Besides, the value of a weapon is largely offset when you’re talking about burglars who were stealthy enough to commit the entire crime with neither of us aware they were in the house. 

Though home security concerns often prompt homeowners to consider weapons for self protection, having a gun handy means little. Most people killed by guns in burglaries are killed by their own guns. Homeowners often fail to take any safety courses or firearm training. My father committed the ultimate sin by not even taking the time to educate his son on the correct use and very real danger of this thing. Then there’s the matter of legality. Having a criminal in your home does not give you the right to take a life. Yes, I know the old saying, better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 (a reference to juries versus coffins) but are you really willing to risk spending years in prison over a few possessions you should have insured anyway? Absent a clear physical threat to you (the bad guy, wielding a butcher knife, backed you into a corner) firing a shot at an unarmed man makes you a criminal too. 

Aside from the gun, we did do a few things right. The burglars gained access to our house through the front kitchen window. They were able to do so despite it facing a well-lit street. How? Because we committed the sin of valuing our privacy. Fronting our kitchen window was a large shrub. The crooks only needed bend their knees slightly while prying the window to be all but invisible to any passing cars. 

In addition to the shrub, our porch light was turned off. My father came from modest beginnings and the idea of a burning light that wasn’t (it seemed) providing any functional purpose was like holy water to vampires to him. You know the guy, “what are you doing, trying to light the whole neighborhood?!” That, along with the recurring reminder that money didn’t grow on trees, was an old regular in our home. A brightly lit porch might have served as at least some discouragement.

Finally there was nothing to really deter a criminal from trying our home or, at the very least, considering easier options. There were no “protected by” signs out front. There was no mean dog sleeping in the kitchen. There were no motion-detecting lights, locking window latches or any of a dozen crime-deterring options available to you today. 

Ultimately, many of our stolen items were recovered. The crooks got greedy and hit one too many houses, resulting in their being caught. But not before they managed to sell some of their haul. What wasn’t recovered was replaced by our insurance company. My hope is that there is a lesson in this for you. 

If you are in the market for a wireless security camera, that’s great. I’m a fan of the technology and I love the idea of crooks getting caught red handed thanks to wireless surveillance cameras. But before they even set foot in your home, at which point the risk to you, your family and your property increases exponentially, wouldn’t it make sense to have enough “soft” security on and about your property to discourage the attempt? 

So as you gaze around your home looking for a good place for a wireless camera, take the time to also look for vulnerabilities and solutions. I’m not saying invest in a complete home security system complete with alarms and a slavering Doberman (though that’d be great too). But there are relatively inexpensive precautions you can take. Trim back any greenery that a criminal can use for cover while breaking in. Install motion detecting flood lights covering all exposed areas of your house. Consider do-it-yourself security alarms. Unlike the serviced models, these won’t call the police when there’s a break-in but they will blare an alarm to warn you and your neighbors. Place visible signs advising that “this home is protected by….” 

You shouldn’t try to turn your home into a fortress. Bars on the window and other options carry their own risks and will turn your house into as much of prison as a castle. But your end all objective is to make your home less appealing than neighboring houses. I know, that sounds cruel. It’s like you and your friend trying to outrun a lion and you thinking, I don’t have to outrun the lion, I just have to outrun my friend. But if your neighbors have any sense about them, they’ll upgrade their security as well, leaving the potential criminals to opt for a different neighborhood entirely. 

So there we go; a post not about wireless surveillance cameras but about everyday considerations we often overlook in our home security endeavors. Our next post will, again, deviate from the technology and focus on personal security.

The third installment of our nanny cam scenarios is the most chilling and disturbing of all. It’s the one thing we absolutely never want to have happen. In cases of sexual or physical abuse, the footage captured by your wireless surveillance camera might make the difference between successfully prosecuting the offender or having a case come down to your word against theirs. 

In the event that you review your nanny cam footage and discover abuse of any kind, do NOT call or confront the babysitter personally regardless the torrent of emotion you will be feeling. Our next post will contain a list of states in which there are specific laws regulating the use of hidden cameras. If you are in one of those states, we strongly suggest you convince your child to confess to the crimes the babysitter committed, take him or her to the hospital and call the police to meet you there and then speak to an attorney and confide you have video evidence of the crime only to your attorney for now. Your child’s physical health will be assessed at the hospital and photographic evidence of the crime will also be secured. In cases of sexual abuse, physical evidence may also be gathered. In states with strict laws against hidden nanny cameras, confiding in law enforcement agencies that you discovered the crime on your wireless surveillance camera should be, if at all possible, something you avoid until you’ve spoken to your attorney who can guide you in how best to use the evidence without getting in trouble for having violated a law yourself.

If your state does not have strict laws prohibiting the recording of individuals without their consent on a nanny cam, advise the police that you have video evidence of the crime committed against your child. They will likely wish to see it in advance of making the arrest as it serves as one more piece in a chain of evidence which will make an arrest ironclad. Be sure to make a copy of the recording as you’ll want to have another copy to provide to your attorney as well. 

We pray you never find yourself in the position of having to use evidence gathered by your wireless surveillance camera in prosecuting an individual for the abuse of your child. Should the worst happen, though, remember that you only have one shot at getting a solid conviction. Play it smart, keep your wits about you and you’ll at least be able to know you made a difference in the world.

The next morning you review your wireless surveillance camera footage and are surprised to see your babysitter violated your no-guest policy and had her boyfriend over. A bit later the video finds the two of them partially nude and making love on your living room floor. You cringe as, in one scene, your daughter walks in on the two of them. She is promptly shooed out of the room by the half-dressed babysitter who is clearly mortified. The babysitter immediately dresses and kicks the boyfriend out of the house before crying in apparent shame on the couch. 

The solution to Scenario #2 is much the same as in our previous post covering Illegal Activity and Violation of Rules Caught on Nanny Cameras. Again, depending on your personal values and expectations, you can either terminate or keep the babysitter employed. Do not, however, let on that you caught events on a nanny cam. Should you chose to keep her employed, simply call her and let her know a neighbor ratted her out on her violation of the no-guest rule and you want to reaffirm there should be no boys staying with her while she’s watching your daughter.

Should your babysitter deny your “neighbor’s” claims, advise her that your daughter told you that she’d seen the babysitter “wrestling with some boy.” If she should continue to deny, add the word “naked” and then fire the lying brat without further explanation. If she isn’t willing to fess up under that kind of evidence then she’s likely to continue breaking rules when she thinks you won’t be aware. 

If your solution to Scenario #2 is termination, there is no need to humiliate your babysitter by letting her know you’ve just watched a video from your nanny cam of her bumping uglies with her boyfriend. Simply advise her you’ll no longer require her services. Should she press for why just, use the same excuse that a neighbor ratted her out and you’ve nothing more to say on the subject.

Not only did your babysitter violate your no-guests rules, smoking marijuana clearly leaves her in no state to be responsibly taking care of your children. Furthermore, you wonder what kind of trouble you’d be in if the police happened to show up and find your babysitter doing drugs in your home. 

Your solution for Scenario 1 might be tolerance or it might not be. Personally, I call this the “clean break” scenario. I wouldn’t be tolerant of the person I’d hired to watch my child using illegal substances on my property. Not only is she breaking the law and my rules, she’s jeopardizing the safety of my child in the process. Should you elect to keep her employed, you clearly have to address the issue in a definitive way. But do you tell her you have video of her smoking pot?

No. 

If this is somebody you’d like to keep employed, broach the matter without bringing up the nanny cam. Call her and let her know that you clearly smelled marijuana in the house. Further bolster your position by telling her that a neighbor called to tell you he’d seen a bunch of people enter your home while you were away. Imply that you’d like to keep her services but that you will not tolerate any risks to your child’s safety resulting from a sitter with impaired judgment. Finally, ask her to be honest and decide now whether she’d like to keep her job or not. If she’d like to keep it, she must agree to your terms and understand that you’ll be closely monitoring matters hence forth. 

Should you feel trust has been to irrevocably broken or that you’d simply rather not risk another such event, simply call your babysitter and thank her for her past services but that you’ll no longer be needing her. Should she press for why, feel free to mention the obvious smell of marijuana and a report from an unspecified neighbor relating to her having had guests without your consent. 

Why not mention the evidence being on camera? I’ll answer that question with another question. Why risk it getting around that you’re monitoring your babysitters with nanny cameras? She’s sure to tell her friends who might be in high school or college together. Word could spread like wildfire and where does that leave you the next time you need to hire a sitter? Again, it is the hidden nature of a nanny cam that allows you to catch babysitters doing what they shouldn’t. If one is unscrupulous but aware of being watched, she’ll probably just move her undesirable behavior into another room.

Ask any parent and I’m sure they’ll confess that the safety of their child trumps the privacy rights of their child’s babysitter. After all, the physical, mental and emotional health of a child is at stake. While that’s true, it isn’t ethical to assume that your babysitter, therefore, has no rights at all when she (or he) enters your home and assumes the responsibility of watching your child. After all, there are far more honest and responsible babysitters and nannies in the world than there are bad else nobody would ever hire babysitters. But perhaps you’re wondering what rights you could possibly be violating by monitoring activity in your own home. 

Assume a scenario in which you’ve hidden a wireless surveillance camera in your living room. Your objective is to ensure the safety of your child. You and your wife will be out of town and the baby sitter will be spending the night to watch your child. Several hours after she puts your child to bed, she undresses and changes into her sweats and t-shirt, then goes to sleep on your living room couch. All of that is captured on camera. The only question to ask yourself is how she would feel if she knew you subsequently reviewed that footage and saw her undress. Regardless your intent, you have just violated her privacy in a very real way. We could further compound this scenario by assuming she is only 16 or 17. Now you’ve really messed up. 

Given the above scenario you may be inclined to assume that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, but in matters of ethics and privacy rights, you can’t be so cavalier. Though unlikely, were she to discover that you watched her stripping on your camera, you might very well find yourself in serious legal trouble. 

We don’t even need to go so far as to assume nudity to accept that people behave very differently when they think nobody is around to watch them. I believe it was on the show Heroes where a man with the power to be invisible confessed that the experience wasn’t as exciting as one might think. People are flatulent and prone to picking noses and scratching private areas when nobody else is around. Think of the last time you were alone for a few hours. How would you feel knowing that somebody watched that? 

There are simply no perfect solutions to this dilemma other than to not put up babysitter cameras at all, but that undermines the very important objective of preserving your child’s safety. As such, you can minimize the invasion of privacy the best you can in a few ways. The first is to be gender sensitive. If your babysitter is female, the wife should review the footage. If the babysitter is male, the husband should do the reviewing. Your female babysitter isn’t likely to reveal any part of her anatomy your wife isn’t already familiar with.

Another method to minimize impact is to review the footage in fast-forward. Again, it’s a personal, ethical decision. Your babysitter wouldn’t care a lick if she found out that you recorded her every move but had the decency to watch in fast motion. But, at least you will know that you did what you could to minimize the intrusion on her privacy. 

Also ensure the camera is not positioned to record any area where truly private activity is likely to occur. Your bathroom is the most likely vulnerability here. If your babysitter is expected to bathe your children and you feel you must have a wireless surveillance camera in the room to ensure there’s nothing illicit going on, place the camera so that it only faces the tub. If it also records the toilet, you are likely to wind up with some very personal footage of your babysitter and the real risk of criminal prosecution should it be subsequently discovered by him or her. 

Finally, keep it on the down low. While not necessarily legal advice, you should never reveal to your babysitter, your friends or your neighbors that you have been recording his or her activity. Barring any criminal activity which may require you to provide the footage as evidence, letting it get back to your babysitter that you’ve had them under surveillance will, at the very least, cost you a babysitter. At worst, it may land you in court. 

Recording somebody on a wireless surveillance camera puts you on a slippery slope. Despite your parental concerns and your justified interest in protecting your child or your home, the person you’ve invited into your house has rights too. Without sacrificing your need for security and your child’s safety, do the best you can to protect your nanny’s rights as well. You’ll sleep better for it.