I’m keen to know your angle.

Certainly! My threat model is mainly against mass surveillance, so this is my view: If there is a surveillance camera recording in a place where there is reasonable expectation of having no strangers, I am mostly fine with that. As you mentioned, if it is only recording your own private property where no strangers are meant to be, that is your business.

However, if it is recording a space where there is reason to expect strangers to be there without violating private property (e.g. stores, doorsteps, sidewalks) that is not ok. Simply, I should not be in the crossfire of your surveillance. I don’t know your intentions with the footage, and I don’t know who else may have access to it. It shouldn’t be my job to cover up just because you want to violate the public’s right to privacy.

You can see this post of mine about my views on the expectation of privacy in public. I made it about a year ago, and I haven’t read back over it, so it may be outdated or less refined than I’d prefer.

I am a huge advocate for the right to privacy, so I don’t have any surveillance cameras of my own. When I have friends over, I want to lead by example and make my space a private space for them too. Instead of funding more surveillance, we should be funding stronger locks and better deterrents that don’t violate human rights.

I guess a lot of cameras cover sidewalks and so. I have one pointing at my front door and one at my garage door and both show the sidewalk… I never gave much thought about it until I saw that article about Amazon’s Ring cameras recording passerby faces and putting it into their database.