Wesley Chapel, FL asked in Civil Litigation and Civil Rights for Florida

Q: My neighbor's video camera is pointed at my driveway/front lawn. It's recording my children on my property. Legal?

Everytime someone walks on my driveway or my lawn, the camera announces "smile, you're being recorded." I live in Pasco County, Florida. Is this legal?

1 Lawyer Answer

A: It may or may not be legal, depending on the apparent purpose of the camera, and depending on if it's only video or also audio. Generally, no audio recording is lawful without the consent of the person being recorded - and it's a crime to violate that law. If it's video only, and its purpose is to view people who enter their own property, but it happens to capture a portion of your property in the background (with no view into your interior), it's probably lawful. Check with code enforcement. Even if it's lawful, you could ask code enforcement about the "SMILE, YOU'RE BEING RECORDED" announcement if it's loud and if that, alone, bothers you - but on the other hand, having that warning might be better than not knowing you're being video-recorded.

Now, if code enforcement says there's nothing applicable in the code, one way or the other, probably the only legal issues involved are those regarding invasion of privacy (as to the video) and nuisance (as to the announcement). If the scenario is video only, and in the way I described above, you probably would not have a viable invasion of privacy claim if anyone passing by on the street or sidewalk would have the same view of the scene as the neighbor does through the camera. You may or may not have a viable nuisance claim regarding the announcement, and if, hypothetically, you did, it probably would support, at most, a claim for injunctive relief, not for money.

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