In the US, there is generally no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in public. If a person is visible from a public street, you can likely record them. However, 13 states (including California, Connecticut, and Florida) have two-party consent laws for audio recording. Even if your camera legally sees a neighbor, if it hears them without their knowledge, you may be breaking wiretapping laws.
At first, this seems good. You stop leaving laundry on the sofa. Your teen drives the speed limit. But over time, hypervigilance leads to anxiety. You start checking the app 50 times a day. You get push notifications for every leaf blowing across the porch. The camera, meant to relieve worry, becomes the source of it.
The golden rule of camera privacy is simple:
This shift from deterrence (a visible camera scares a burglar away) to data collection (the camera records everything for analysis) is where privacy starts to fray.
Additionally, (where AI trains on your device without sending data out) and end-to-end encryption are becoming selling points. Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video requires that your device decrypts the video, not Apple’s servers.
