Knock Knock: Apartments, Doorbell Cameras, and Privacy Law
For their first date, Jared and Grace had planned to get dinner then go see a movie—a teenage rite of passage. A uniquely 21st-century twist, however, got things off to an awkward start. When Jared went to pick Grace up from her house, he was greeted not by his date, but rather startled by a disembodied voice crackling through the doorbell camera. “Who’s this?” asked the voice. “I’m Jared,” came the nervous reply. “Hello, Jared. This is Pedro. This is Grace’s dad,” the voice explained.
After exchanging forced pleasantries, Pedro adjusted the curfew and requested Jared to “treat her rightly because that’s my first daughter.” While the protective father is an enduring (and perhaps endearing) archetype, Pedro’s virtual intervention in his daughter’s private life signals a troubling new reality: Doorbell cameras displacing human interaction and surveilling guests or passersby.
Indeed, 20% of U.S. households owned a doorbell camera in 2023, up from 4% in 2017. Market revenue for doorbell cameras stood at $418 million in 2023 and is expected to reach $1,048 million by 2030—a compound annual growth rate of 14% from 2024 to 2030. Research suggests the COVID-19 pandemic fueled homeownership upgrades such as installing doorbell cameras, and the technology has become ubiquitous in American life.
Ring, which is owned by Amazon, has engaged in questionable law enforcement practices since dominating the U.S. doorbell camera market. In 2022, Amazon delivered Ring footage to police without owners’ permission at least eleven times in response to police subpoenas and emergency requests, bypassing obtaining warrants. Until January 2024, police could request Ring footage directly from users, and users could directly submit Ring footage to police via an app, raising concerns of racial profiling by suspicious neighbors. Such instances raise the question: Is doorbell camera technology really progress? What are the legal implications of such mass, private surveillance?
Criminal procedure concerns aside, the law surrounding doorbell cameras and privacy remains settled and favors camera owners: People are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that reasonable expectation ends once someone leaves their home. In other words, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy once someone enters into public view, whether it is their front yard or driveway. However, cameras may not be focused to see inside someone’s home, like peeping into a neighbor’s bedroom or bathroom. Moreover, under North Carolina law, the camera owner must secure consent from at least one person in a conversation to record audio.
At best, these laws provide doorbell camera owners with peace-of-mind, insulating them from legal challenges arising out of their good-faith efforts to enhance their home security. At worst, doorbell camera owners can exploit the law to surveil their neighbors. Nowhere is this issue more salient than in apartment buildings.
Doorbell cameras affixed to single-family houses typically record those who approach the front door, and they might capture a distanced glimpse of pedestrians along the sidewalk. In extreme scenarios, the cameras enable a full view of the across-the-street neighbor’s property, monitoring the neighbor’s front yard and driveway. Because Ring cameras can detect motion up to thirty feet away and alert owners of such motion, across-the-street neighbors typically do not have to worry about tripping the motion detector when going about their lives.
However, as opposed to single-family houses, apartment units may be set in tight corridors with high foot traffic. Units may also face each other, with entrances less than ten feet apart. Accordingly, doorbell cameras mounted on apartment units prove much more invasive than those attached to single-family houses.
Privacy law should be more sensitive to the unique challenges posed by apartments, given their constricted public areas and units’ close proximity to one another.
Fellow tenants (and their guests) routinely pass by other units at short range, falling well within the thirty-foot motion detector on Ring cameras and enabling camera owners to keep tabs on their neighbors at all times. Even more troubling are camera owners with across-the-hall neighbors: The camera owner can spy on them entering and exiting, becoming intimately familiar with their neighbors’ routines and who is visiting them when (It’s Friday, so I can see Michael’s girlfriend come over around 7pm! Yippee!). Most concerning is that, if the units are close enough, these cameras peer into their neighbors’ dwellings, breaking the law by intruding on the neighbors’ reasonable expectation to privacy. Moreover, that doorbell cameras can record audio up to twenty feet away enables the owner to record her close neighbor’s conversations—conflicting with the consent required under North Carolina law.
Attorney Will Quick opined, “It’s a good practice not to focus your camera on a place that’s solely your neighbor’s property, because that sort of [implies you’re not just] using it for your own protection.” The same logic should apply to doorbell camera owners in apartment complexes who train their equipment straight across the hall.
Privacy law should be more sensitive to the unique challenges posed by apartments, given their constricted public areas and units’ close proximity to one another. If a tenant feels safer with a camera, the law should require the camera be mounted in such a way to not capture the neighbor’s door and mandate audio recording be limited—or outright prohibited. Alternatively, legislation could require apartments to install their own cameras in public areas and restrict private surveillance measures undertaken by tenants. However, this solution is unlikely to happen since it would shift the cost of security from tenants to apartments, raising rents and burdening apartment management with more legal risk. Regardless, the law desperately needs to adapt to preserve apartment residents’ privacy rights.
Thomas Hammons
Thomas Hammons is a second-year law student interested in the intersection of land use, climate, and energy. Originally from Jackson, MS, Thomas attended Davidson College where he double majored in Philosophy and Spanish. An avid fan of the arts, Thomas is the founder and president of the Carolina Law Student Musician Association.