Schools CCTV use for watching me take my Amazon parcel

[password1234]

so...

 

I live directly opposite a school

 

Earlier this evening someone (Staff member i presume) from the school popped over in the evening asking if i can "Give us the parcel that was delivered yesterday addressed to the school to my house"

 

I told her no such parcel arrived at our placed addressed to the school yesterday.. (i went inside just to double check incase someone at home may have picked it up) but this wasn't the case..

 

so then I told her we don't have it...she then goes on on a rant and starts to get loud and mildly aggressive saying "We have you on CCTV picking the parcel up at 6pm and you came out the door and picked it up"

 

i said yes i did pop out yesterday at 6pm to collect a parcel a Parcel that was addressed to me and NOT THE SCHOOL, so I asked to see the CCTV footage in the school of what exactly they saw..(didnt get that far though as by the time i went to get changed some admin lady from the school popped over and i explained the situation that i dont have the schools parcel and the only parcel i picked up yesterday was one ADDRESSED to ME! and i even showed her the envelope it was a flat long one which could not fit the door so the postman knocked i came out and picked it up.....i asked them what was size of the parcel she goes a small box

 

Then the original staff member had the cheek to tell the other staff member "Can you not zoom in" trying to make out i kept it!!!

 

The other admin lady apologised in the end, i sent the business manager and head a complaint about what happened so will see what happens

 

but my question is can CCTV be justified and used in the way they did - pointing outside my house and watching me pick up a Parcel and using that against me accusing me (which it felt like it big time) that i have taken their parcel! and the cheek for her to say "Can you not zoom in" !!

 

apparently the postman told them it got delivered to my number which clearly wasnt the case

Can schools justify the CCTV usage for this?

Edited December 17, 2021 by password1234

[paulkerton]

so...

 

I live directly opposite a school

 

Earlier this evening someone (Staff member i presume) from the school popped over in the evening asking if i can "Give us the parcel that was delivered yesterday addressed to the school to my house"

 

I told her no such parcel arrived at our placed addressed to the school yesterday.. (i went inside just to double check incase someone at home may have picked it up) but this wasn't the case..

 

so then I told her we don't have it...she then goes on on a rant and starts to get loud and mildly aggressive saying "We have you on CCTV picking the parcel up at 6pm and you came out the door and picked it up"

 

i said yes i did pop out yesterday at 6pm to collect a parcel a Parcel that was addressed to me and NOT THE SCHOOL, so I asked to see the CCTV footage in the school of what exactly they saw..(didnt get that far though as by the time i went to get changed some admin lady from the school popped over and i explained the situation that i dont have the schools parcel and the only parcel i picked up yesterday was one ADDRESSED to ME! and i even showed her the envelope it was a flat long one which could not fit the door so the postman knocked i came out and picked it up.....i asked them what was size of the parcel she goes a small box

 

Then the original staff member had the cheek to tell the other staff member "Can you not zoom in" trying to make out i kept it!!!

 

The other admin lady apologised in the end, i sent the business manager and head a complaint about what happened so will see what happens

 

but my question is can CCTV be justified and used in the way they did - pointing outside my house and watching me pick up a Parcel and using that against me accusing me (which it felt like it big time) that i have taken their parcel! and the cheek for her to say "Can you not zoom in" !!

 

apparently the postman told them it got delivered to my number which clearly wasnt the case

Can schools justify the CCTV usage for this?

Yeah, you can absolutely have a field day in court with them for filming your property without your permission...

[password1234]

Yeah, you can absolutely have a field day in court with them for filming your property without your permission...

 

Yeh really annoyed me this has

 

the really funny thing is as well few months ago someone broke into my car...police went over to school wanted to see CCTV footage to which the school replied "The camera doesn't point this way" yet all of a sudden they have CCTV footage of my picking up a delivery parcel from the amazon driver outside the door...and car was parked right outside my house!

 

the fact that they used this footage to watch me take a parcel then have the audacity to say that i have taken their parcel is annoying!

[Ditto]

Absolutely a no-no and the you were right to complain - not least as the rudeness is out of order. I suspect several laws have been broken here. The school needs to fix this asap as they could find themselves in hot water. The was a recent case that is covered on another thread about a ring doorbell and covering other people's property - your situation is different but there are some parallels. The case got lots of comments but the judgement in some parts was contrary to what some edugeekers expected. If you want to look at the case in detail see https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fairhurst-v-Woodard-Judgment-1.pdf

[strawberry]

Time to put in a FOI

[password1234]

Absolutely a no-no and the you were right to complain - not least as the rudeness is out of order. I suspect several laws have been broken here. The school needs to fix this asap as they could find themselves in hot water. The was a recent case that is covered on another thread about a ring doorbell and covering other people's property - your situation is different but there are some parallels. The case got lots of comments but the judgement in some parts was contrary to what some edugeekers expected. If you want to look at the case in detail see https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fairhurst-v-Woodard-Judgment-1.pdf

 

Time to put in a FOI

Thanks both!

 

Typically I work for LEA providing ICT Support services to schools and it just happened to be this particular School we provide Admin ICT support to (Luckily though i've not had to deal with them since i been working here! But sods law they ring up and usually it would be assigned to visit them onsite me because I live the closest!)

 

But yeh putting that aside tempted to put an FOI request through to get access of the CCTV footage, really curious to what angle this camera is pointing to my house

[jthompson]

I'd have thought they'd be obliged to mask out any parts of the frame covering neighbouring properties if covering them is unavoidable. That's what we've done in the past.

[hardtailstar]

I'd have thought they'd be obliged to mask out any parts of the frame covering neighbouring properties if covering them is unavoidable. That's what we've done in the past.

Our CCTV does this.

[powdarrmonkey]

This not a FOI matter, it's a data protection issue. Make a subject access request for all personal data held about you including but not limited to CCTV data and remind them of their obligations not to weed or filter such data before disclosure. If you only get that one moment and not your other recent comings and goings from the house you know they almost certainly weeded. Complain formally to the governing body and the information commissioner in the meantime. Talk to Citizens Advice for help getting the text right. (Not legal advice, NaL, get legal advice, Citizens Advice, etc.)

 

Monitoring a private house like this is an outrageous abuse and if the view of your front door is reasonable it's probably possible to see in through the front windows to some extent as well...

[slugshead]

Everything outside of their property is supposed to be masked/redacted to remain GDPR compliant.

 

Go one further than an FOI. Put a SAR in so they have to hand over copies of every clip of video that have you on. Make it a pain in the backside for them https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/

[password1234]

Thanks guys

 

Already emailed the SBM and the Head - doubt i will get a reply back till after the holidays now, I have also emailed our LEA DPO asking them for advice

 

Another thing which i have just thought about was "how long were they watching CCTV footage for" whether they just sat there during watching outside my house for the entire duration of the day just waiting to see when the Amazon Driver came i dont know

 

So I think i am going to go ahead with a SAR request in for the video footage, if they sat down and looked for the entire day period i.e. from like 8am to 6pm (6pm was the time the amazon driver came) watching every movement during this period then this is disturbing!

 

Does anyone know if CCTV systems shows audit/access logs as to what clips and duration they accessed?

[Rob_D]

Does anyone know if CCTV systems shows audit/access logs as to what clips and duration they accessed?

If historic data was accessed was then I would expect there to be some sort of audit logs. But that wouldn't cover anyone watching live monitoring stations. For example, our reception have monitors showing the access controlled carpark gates so they can see who they're letting in. Any logging for that would, at best, show the viewer was connected between 6:30-22:00 every day.

 

Also, going by some threads on here, be prepared for any FOI regarding specifics of CCTV (especially coverage) to be rejected on security grounds.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Rob_D

[elsiegee40]

Also, going by some threads on here, be prepared for any FOI regarding specifics of CCTV (especially coverage) to be rejected on security grounds.

 

Which is why a Subject Access Request is the way forward. They’re asking for information about themselves rather than the security system.

[enjay]

I'd have thought they'd be obliged to mask out any parts of the frame covering neighbouring properties if covering them is unavoidable. That's what we've done in the past.

 

CCTV at my last school did this too. We had one camera which pointed over another (business) property. It was excluded from the motion detection, so any movement there didn't trigger our cameras to record but the location would be recorded when there was movement elsewhere. We checked this and apparently it was okay, because we had legitimate reason for the camera and were unable to reposition it to avoid their property.

 

Another thing which i have just thought about was "how long were they watching CCTV footage for" whether they just sat there during watching outside my house for the entire duration of the day just waiting to see when the Amazon Driver came i dont know

 

With Amazon, you can see the exact minute of delivery, so I imagine they just looked for it then.

 

Put a SAR in so they have to hand over copies of every clip of video that have you on. Make it a pain in the backside for them

 

The rudeness is unacceptable, but it wasn't the IT Manager (who might even be on this forum, of course) or Business Manager was who rude, and I'm sure the Headteacher didn't tell the admin person to be a t**t. Also consider whether you want to make things difficult for them (and you, since you've said you sometimes work there) or whether you want the camera repositioning - the former might make the latter difficult.

 

Edit - re-reading this, it makes it sound like I'm on the school's "side" here. I'm not. It is unacceptable for them to film your property with any level of clarity, and the rudeness and accusations are definitely not acceptable. I do think a calm, measured response is the way forward though.

Edited December 20, 2021 by enjay