Dutch police advise holidaymakers to install a smart camera doorbell

The Dutch police advise households on holiday to install a smart doorbell to prevent burglaries. The police also advise citizens to register these cameras with the Camera In Beeld database, although public security cameras are often against the privacy law.

The police recommends the use of smart doorbells a list of tips for vacationers. For example, she recommends not always closing curtains and leaving plants on the windowsill, but also using time switches to automatically switch lights on and off in the evening, so that it seems that someone is home. The police also advise against posting holiday photos on social media.

“More and more people protect their property with cameras,” the police writes. “The police often use camera images in their daily work to solve crimes.” The tips also include the option to register a doorbell or surveillance camera with the Camera In Beeld database. This is a database in which the police keep track of which house has a camera. The police cannot watch the images, but use the locations to requisition images more quickly if a crime has been committed. Agents then know more quickly which households they can go to for images that may have recorded it.

It is striking that the police are actively calling for a smart doorbell to be installed, although this happens quite often. In principle, cameras may not be aimed at public roads, confirms the Dutch Data Protection Authority. But doorbell cameras, by definition, are almost always pointed at the road. Especially when it comes to registering with Camera In Beeld, it is important that images of the public road are recorded. The police therefore in fact call for violations of the privacy law. The call does not contain any guarantees about the rules regarding security cameras and what citizens are and are not allowed to film.

It is not the first time that the police have actively called for violations of the privacy law. In 2019, smart doorbells were distributed by various municipalities, together with the police, in a pilot. At the beginning of 2021, 44,000 private security cameras were registered with Camera In the picture.