NaNinJul 16, 2025

I need help advocating for privacy in my HOA, which wants to set up cameras in common areas

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/49094628

I need help advocating for privacy in my HOA, which wants to set up cameras in common areas - Divisions by zero

A new neighbor moved in and is really advocating for them, but I think most people in the HOA are split. It’s come up after some recent thefts after someone left a garage door open. I’m thinking of organizing my arguments like this: 1. Even with a camera capturing a thief’s face, police are unlikely to actually catch the person or retreive the stolen property. 2. Invasion of personal privacy, I don’t like being tracked and my whereabouts being monitored 3. Surrendering biometric data without my consent 4. Police / ICE using the data without permission to harass our residents How does this sound? It’s so exhausting fighting against this. Does anyone have any other good points or articles that can provide support? Many thanks in advance

Show threadNaibofTabrJul 16, 2025

These “user-friendly” network cameras are frequently bought and set up by people who have no idea what they’re doing, which leads to thousands of them being accessible to anyone on the Internet:

Bitsight Identifies Thousands of Security Cameras Openly Accessible on the Internet

Wyze cameras let some owners see into a stranger’s home — again

Security startup Verkada hack exposes 150,000 security cameras in Tesla factories, jails, and more

Somebody’s Watching: Hackers Breach Ring Home Security Cameras

Even the companies that make and distribute these cameras don’t secure them properly.

If the HOA insists on installing cameras, you should insist that they hire a professional to install and configure them correctly and maintain them long-term to prevent security breaches. Someone has to keep the firmware/software up to date when the manufacturer releases security patches and bug fixes, not just for the cameras but also for the network they’re connected to. This means you don’t just need to pay for one-time installation, you need to hire an employee long-term.

I would also ask the pushy neighbor if he was specifically planning on buying Wyze cameras for this. They’ve had multiple security problems in recent years.

40K Security Cameras Found Compromised Online | Bitsight

Bitsight TRACE has found over 40,000 exposed cameras streaming live on the internet. Learn where these cameras are, the risk, and how to protect yourself.

Bitsight
Show threadfartographerJul 16, 2025

I would also ask the pushy neighbor if he was specifically planning on buying Wyze cameras for this. They’ve had multiple security problems in recent years.

I have Wyze cameras and can confirm. On a handful of occasions, I’ve opened my app to thumbnails or livestreams of places I do not recognize. I’ll probably change this up at some point when I can afford to replace them and get a better hang of Home Assistant.

Show threadSwizzleStick

Hi fellow HA user in the wild.

Whatever cams you go with, most important thing is that they support a direct rtsp connection. Frigate is an excellent add-on for recording, and for object detection if you want to do that.

We have some generic IP cameras here that have local access only, and a couple of Arduino camera PCBs in printed housings.

A coral TPU is essential if you want to get into object detection on more than one camera. Can use the CPU for testing, but it’s very easy to tap it out.

Jul 16, 2025 at 8:12amWeb
Show threadNaibofTabrJul 16, 2025

IP cameras here that have local access only

This is the right way.

No proprietary SaaS portals, no cloud uploads, no external network links.

Hopefully the local connections are encrypted and the devices on the network are segmented into VLANs, otherwise anyone on the local network could just watch the video stream.

Show threadSwizzleStickJul 17, 2025

Honestly have not bothered too much on the internal security side. Everything is in a melting pot on the same subnet, with pfsense managing what’s allowed out. At the very least, the cams and any other accessible internal devices do not run default/duplicated credentials.

Only two users on the network, and the occasional trusted guest. I don’t see the need to go further quite yet.