Surveillance cameras: For / Against

On this occasion, I climbed the ladder and cleaned the lenses and optics of my cameras. That is another disadvantage. They accumulate dust/dirt. Even a very light film is enough to reduce image quality. Especially when it comes to 1080p and higher, every speck of dust is visible and disturbing. Oh, and spiders sometimes spin a web in front of them too. In other words, you have to clean them regularly.

Publication of images without consent concerns the Kunsturhebergesetz. The exceptions are also stated there.

Copyright, however, is something different. It has little to do with the right to one's own image (in video surveillance), but rather with copyright, which means that one must not distribute someone else's property (artist's rights).

Copyright law is something different now. It has little to do with the right to one's own image (in video surveillance), but rather with copyright law, which means that one may not distribute someone else's property (artist's rights).

Oh, there is a lot of half-knowledge at play again, because the Art Copyright Act is indeed affected.

§ 22 KunstUrhG:
"Portraits may only be distributed or publicly displayed with the consent of the person depicted. Consent is deemed given in doubt if the person depicted received remuneration for being portrayed. After the death of the person depicted, consent of the relatives of the person depicted is required until 10 years have passed. Relatives within the meaning of this law are the surviving spouse or life partner and the children of the person depicted and, if neither a spouse or life partner nor children are present, the parents of the person depicted."

Copyright law is now something different. It has little to do with the right to one's own image (in video surveillance), but rather with copyright law, which means that one may not distribute someone else's property (artist's rights)

See the next post. And when something is posted from public to the internet, then the image is distributed. Usually without consent. Simply recording is initially exempt from punishment according to the KunstUrhG. To what extent the GDPR is affected, I do not want to judge. And I am not interested in reading up on it either. By the way, legal texts are freely available. Anyone is welcome to google them. If something questionable really comes up, I am also happy to check Beck online or juris.

In the private family sphere, the GDPR does not apply.

Recordings that are freely posted on the internet are no longer part of this exception and the GDPR applies: information obligations, deletion deadlines, data minimization, and the whole shebang.

Furthermore, there are surely other laws that prohibit or restrict dissemination.

Common sense applies, and you simply do not put your video recordings from the surveillance cameras live on the internet. That makes the whole thing pointless.

Webcams which have exactly the opposite purpose are, of course, something different.