Tweaking the CCTV

Having run the CCTV for a while (and not trying to cover the legal issues today), I have been having some fun tweaking.

I am really liking the NX Witness system, but I have a mix of cameras, from dirt cheap to expensive. And the newest ones are really nice - very low level light still in colour and really good clear quality images.

The fun one is the front door. I doubt it is a prime target for burglary, being right on a busy road, and the camera is hidden up in the alcove over the door, so not even obvious it is there. The main use of this camera is for deliveries. To prove when they arrived, and by 24/7 recording, proving when they did not arrive. It is also to allow for parcels left on doorstep and being nicked, or parcels or letters I leave for collection by post man on the door step and being actually picked up by the post man and not someone else. I have used that before to prove postman did collect (long story, saved me a lot of hassle).

I have taken the opportunity to re-position all the cameras, trying to think where someone might jump over a gate or a wall, and ensure a good view. One of my current targets for cameras is showing if/when household waste was put out for collection and when the refuse truck drove off without collecting, as that has happened now 5 times in a row!

But back to the front door - it used to be a dome camera. The issue is it could not see down in to the doorway, so I have replaced with a pendant mount which allows facing down.

So now, with the down facing camera, I actually ended up thinking laterally and turning it 90 degrees. It nicely shows the door, gate, some of pavement, and, pretty well, the "delivery". The only tweak which I will do is raise it a bit to ensure a clearer focus on the parcels themselves.

Update: I ended up changing the type of camera, to one with better focus controls, but still mounting in the eaves facing down. I also managed to get it all turned around in nxwitness.

It also avoids catching too many passers by, or at least faces, which I don't need to record, so even though this should all be out of scope of GDPR, I may as well try and avoid recording.

In many ways it is amusing, and relieving, that the main use of the cameras is not related to crime at all, but proving to the council I put the bins out in time and proving they did not collect them, or that a delivery happened or not. These are more benign things but none the less useful.

Timestamps

Another aspect is the overlay text - I have all cameras showing time. All set to NTP. And I decided all set to UTC for sanity sake, as some will not do BST, some do and get it wrong, and some get it right. Easiest option is UTC, and then when savings images or video (as above image) is NX witness overlay local time to avoid any ambiguity. I also added fixed text to say "UTC" by the timestamps, again to avoid ambiguity. Timestamps are a pain, and UTC is one of the few ways to make sense of it, but helps a lot to state it is UTC!

P.S. Someone pointed out the council expect us to leave refuse "kerbside" which puzzled me.

(they ignored the question, saying to leave in the "usual place"!)

Update: to my surprise, after the 5 previous collections days being missed, they collected, yay! They then missed the next day, surprise surprise.

Update: After missing 7 of 8 collection days, we finally got a visit from a supervisor - he was happy with where we were putting rubbish, gave me his mobile number, co-ordinated with the teams and ensured collections. He then worked with us to co-ordinate a change of collection to a different schedule (matching the rest of our road) which was a lot easier for us (fewer bin days). Well done.

CCTV

Warehouse 22?

Picking a CCTV management system

CCTV has moved on a lot these days, and there are a lot of cameras now. Some use proprietary systems, and some have clever custom detection and face recognition and ANPR and hardware inputs and outputs. Some have low light colour. Some have infrared. The options are endless.

But ultimately, whatever they are, you want a management system to record and allow local and remote viewing, alerts and events, basically providing a way to see what is going on and what happened later.

At home

At home, a CCTV system is largely engineered to be a deterrent for theft. A house with a load of cameras should be less likely to be burgled than the next house with none.

But it has a load of other uses, and ironically the main one is deliveries.

• Seeing a delivery in real time remotely, even "talking through the camera" to the delivery person when not there.
• Proving they did not delivery when they said they did, or that they "chucked it over the fence and that is why it broke".

But also, police, and neighbours, may ask if your camera caught something. Yes, this surprising (police asking) as it is an issue with ICO guidance, which is very confusing. They work on the basis of a case law that somehow, even though the collection and processing of potentially personal information is for personal domestic use (so outside scope of GDPR), that somehow it matters what you are seeing with the camera - i.e. seeing a road or path that is off your land. The GDPR does not have that as a criteria, and the second you try to apply that logic it to dash cams and cycle helmet cams and the like it all falls apart. I.e. my cycle helmet cam is "OK" somehow (personal use) but park my bike by the wall of may house and put the helmet on it, viewing the road, is that OK? Then run a power lead to the helmet cam so it runs 24/7, is that OK? As what point does it become not OK as it is a CCTV on my house viewing the road, not a camera on my cycle helmet viewing the road. No logic to it at all.

Of course, even if camera covers public spaces, you can "mask" them on many cameras now, to meet ICO rules.

I also wonder about CCTV, especially the CC part. What if I made cameras open to the world on the internet, it is then OCTV not CCTV, so do any of the ICO rules on CCTV now apply?

At work

At work is different, not personal/domestic use, so needs proper ICO registration, privacy policies, and notices, but once sorted you can run CCTV. There are a lot of legitimate interests for any business running CCTV, for crime detection prevention, both external (break in) and staff fraud (eeeew, don't trust your staff?). As long as you are totally clear about the CCTV, and how and what is processed for what purpose you are probably OK, but don't take my word for it - get legal advice.

Back to the point - recording and management

Whatever cameras you use, and as I say - there are a lot, you need a way to view live, and record, and view and save recordings.

There are many systems, and I have used several. However, the latest I am using has impressed me, so much I feel I should share my fortune and tell you all about it.

The system is "NX Witness", and Simon (of Dedicated Programmes) is an expert at settings these up (and supplying a range of cameras). I am lucky to have got a system from him as a birthday present, thank you.

• It is easy to use
• It is slick
• It is fast
• It is so very responsive

I have used Synology previously, and once wanted to check a delivery (that did throw a parcel over the fence) remotely from mobile, and it took me like half an hour. It was so slow and unresponsive and hard to use.

NX Witness, just works. An app on my phone and on my Mac, but I understand Android and Windows are just as easy.

I had to ask Simon how I save a video clip, as on Synology it was a nightmare, and he was "Duh! draw on timeline, right lick, export video", and it was, and it worked, and that was it!

When I click a time in the past the videos all show it, instantly, no delay. When I click a motion event, the same.

And I have custom icons on my videos now that allow me to turn on lights, open gate, and so on, simply, from my phone.

I really an impressed, simple as that!

Record all

You could record only on motion or events, but hard disks are cheap enough, and recording all has advantages.

The NX Witness makes it easy to see the motion events, and the like.

But recording all allows you to also see when something didn't happen! When a delivery claimed to happen and you can send video covering 10 minutes either side of the time with no delivery happening.

So that is what I do, only for maybe a month's worth, but that allows me to find something if I need.

One edge case was damage to some rendering on a wall, on Synology it was hard to track down, and I imagine on NX witness it would be so much quicker. It was focusing on events for a small part of the image, and the NX witness lets me highlight an area and pick only motion events covering that area.

Don't use WiFi

This should not need saying, but so many cameras these days are WiFi, and even "only 2.4GHz". Just say no. Sorry. Apart from the ease of jamming the WiFi if you want to not be seen, WiFi is very much a shared medium, and a couple of cameras constantly streaming over WiFi can make it shit very quickly.

You need wires anyway for power to the camera, so use PoE, one wire, not that hard even if it means a few holes and cable clips.

Public space

A small follow up because of a comment.

The issue with GDPR is that it covers the purpose of the processing, being domestic/personal, not what you are processing, which is why the case law on CCTV covering a public space makes no sense. And so why trying to draw a line makes no sense. The fact that helmet cams and dash cams are OK, even recording public space, but not fixed CCTV, is a totally mental and wrong interpretation of the law.

I have a couple of good examples. One relative has a doorbell camera, but the house is directly on the public pavement. So to record anything they are recording public space, even when it is a delivery person ringing their door bell. That clearly should be allowed as personal/domestic purpose. (I am lucky to have a small (maybe 1m) space from public pavement).

On the other hand I have a corner that is tarmac'd along with the pavement. I was careful to ensure the tarmac has a clear line for the border of my properly, but lots of people, almost everyone, cuts the corner, walking over my properly when simply walking along the public road. So, in my case, I can record them, under ICO rules, as they are on my property. I have no real reason to, other than I am allowed to as they have not jumped over my gate, etc.