Monitored home alarm with CCTV: can monitoring centres access video only when alarm goes off? or could they spy on us?

mushii

Good external CCTV is often a better deterrent as it often allows identification of anyone skulking around. We often get the 'duster and tea-towel' ex-offenders knocking on our house, generally in the day (I work from home). I like to point out to them that I was watching them on my cameras before they got to the door. I also caught the local pikeys in the skips at the front of the house, when we were having building works done. After pointing out the errors of their ways (theft) and the cameras, we have had no more visits. I also told them that I had their previous 'visits' on camera and their vehicle registrations. My cameras give me much more peace of mind than my Grade 3 professionally installed alarm (it isn't monitored but the app does let me know of activation).

I know if they want to get in, they will, but their are a lot of barriers between here and there.

VforViennetta

Do you need to have a specific sign for CCTV? I understand you don't need it if you are filming your property only (eg back garden) but you need it if filming a public road etc (eg front door CCTV).
Also, how many other houses in the area have it? Are you not worried that people seeing the CCTV might think yours is the only house on the street with valuables worth protecting?

mushii

If its domestic property, no you dont. If it is a place of employment yes you do and you have to post the name and contact details of the appointed data controller. As a business you have to keep copies of ALL of your footage (securely) for a minimum of 3 months and if anybody request a copy of the footage that they are in, they pay you £10 and you have 14 days to produce everything within their requested time frame, otherwise you face continually escalating fines until you do. Just be aware that any monitoring centre is likely to charge you for this footage, whatever their hourly rate is to retreive and edit it.

I have (and still occasionally) installed a lot of domestic CCTV, it is common place today. Everything from 2 bed terraces, 3 bed semis, social housing all the way through to 6 and 7 bed large residences. Its getting to be more common than security system installs. I figure if I walk around my neighbourhood, at least every 10th house has some form of CCTV these days, maybe more than that. I think having a high end sports car or luxury car is more of a 'scrote-magnet' than some CCTV these days. They cant see what is inside your house easily, but a £50k  piece of German engineering on your drive says far more about what they are likely to find inside. If you are on a street and there are a couple of houses with CCTV and a couple with a new Merc / Audi / BMW / 4x4 / Sports Saloon / Sports Hatch I know where I would place my money as being the most likely targets for burglars and thieves. In fact they are more likely to burgle you just for the keys to those cars, than anything else. Rolex's are quite hard to sell - most jewllers and pawn brokers are members of the Rolex Register (where serial numbers of stolen watches are registered on a  global database) and at best might land you a couple of hundred quid. A stolen new Audi TT, in the right hands, will put you anything from 1k to 5k in your back pocket, through a fence. Do the maths. Stealing to order is becoming common place. These kind of thieves dont want their faces seen, CCTV overlooking cars is a big deterrent and a video doorbell makes it hard to fish keys through a letterbox when your face is right next to the camera.