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Amazon subsidiary Ring doorbell camera: Legal gray area
Photo: ANDREW GOMBERT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Is the postman stuffing an envelope in the mailbox?
Are friends coming to visit?
Or is someone trying to break down the door?
Manufacturers promise their customers that such scenes can be recognized quickly with doorbell cameras.
Because in contrast to the classic intercom, you can also see who is standing at the entrance.
The live images are fed into the home network and can be conveniently checked with a smartphone, even when you are on vacation on the beach.
Night vision is standard on the most popular devices like the Amazon Ring and Google Nest Doorbell.
Even retrofitting is easy: drill a hole in the wall, put in dowels and fix the wall bracket with screws.
Most devices run on rechargeable batteries and transmit into the WLAN, which means that complicated cabling is no longer necessary.
But video surveillance at the door is a legal gray area.
If you don't want to get into trouble with the law, you should pay attention to a few rules when installing video doorbells - because the technology can often do more than the legal situation allows.
A house in the country is easy to monitor
A detached house with private property in the country can be monitored without any problems.
"I can set up 20 cameras there," says lawyer Christoph Krosch in an interview with SPIEGEL.
"I just have to make sure that I don't film pedestrians or neighboring properties." In this case, video surveillance interferes with the personal rights of third parties.
That is not allowed.
A warning sign should also be put up, pointing out the camera.
The lens in the bell may only film a private area, says Krosch.
As soon as public sidewalks, streets or parks are filmed, it can get expensive.
In the worst case, the camera operators have to bear the legal costs in a legal dispute.
"It can cost up to 1,000 euros," says the housing law expert.
In an apartment building, things get much more complicated.
The reason: All residents use the entrance and must agree to be filmed.
Therefore, all parties must agree that a camera will be installed.
As soon as an owner or a tenant speaks out against it, no camera should actually be installed, says Krosch.
"The situation may be different if there have been a number of burglaries in the past or if there is an increased need for security for other reasons."
The fun stops when you save
It looks different again when recordings are saved. When it comes to privacy advocates, doorbell videos are not allowed to be recorded at all. A spokesman for the State Commissioner for Data Protection in Baden-Württemberg said on request that a doorbell camera system is only safe if the image transmission is not saved. »A system with a storage function, especially if this should happen permanently or without a reason, can hardly be operated in a legally compliant manner without further precautions.« This applies above all if the data is stored on a server outside of Europe.
The premium function in the subscription, however, is the storage of the videos with the big providers. At Ring, for example, the clips are available on demand for up to a month for a fee. A spokesman for the company told SPIEGEL on request: "We strongly recommend that our customers comply with all applicable laws when using their ring device." Online instructions help customers set up. However, no reference is made here to the risk of storage.
Google also leaves customers alone with the decision.
The company backs up videos for subscription customers for two months, then the recordings are deleted.
"Nest doorbells do not save videos by default," says a spokesman.
"Before users decide to activate this function, they are informed that they are responsible for complying with local laws." This also applies to privacy and data protection rules.
Like a quick peek through the peephole
Due to the complex situation, the data protection authority in Baden-Württemberg recommends not simply installing the camera yourself, but either hiring professionals or first seeking advice from consumer protection centers and state data protection officers. It would be even better if the manufacturers "addressed European consumers with products designed in accordance with data protection regulations".
In addition to storage, according to the authority, it is important that the video only starts when the bell button is pressed. In addition, the transmission must automatically stop after a few seconds. The idea behind it: Looking at the mobile phone display should be comparable to looking through the peephole.
In practice, however, where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge.
Because the state data protection officers have little capacity to check all camera bells.
A neighbor or person affected must first complain before there are consequences and, for example, the tilt of the camera must be changed or the viewing angle of the lens must be restricted with protective flaps.
Complaints about doorbell cameras are rare, says attorney Christoph Krosch.
In the past two years he has worked on two cases in his law firm.
A neighbor complained that his property was filmed.
As a result, the camera had to be realigned.
Another time, a resident of an apartment building successfully resisted having a camera installed in the entrance area.
According to Krosch, things will not go as far as in the USA in this country.
The gadgets are also used there to fight crime.
To this end, more than 1,300 law enforcement agencies are cooperating with Amazon.
The deal: The police hand out free doorbell cameras to citizens.
In return, they agree to provide the authorities with video material.
Civil rights activists have been fighting civilian surveillance cameras for years.
"That's completely unthinkable in this country," says lawyer Krosch.
"It's a clear violation of police law."