Your Neighbour's CCTV Is Pointing at Your Home. Now What?
18 March 2026 · Mary Molloy Solicitors
Cameras got cheap, and the boundary dispute got a lens. The starting legal point: a householder's camera watching their own property is outside the GDPR, but the shelter ends where coverage systematically extends to your garden, your windows, or the shared spaces you both use — at that point your neighbour is processing your personal data and needs a justification they will rarely have.
Step one is boring and effective
A civil conversation resolves a remarkable share of these disputes. Many people have genuinely never checked their camera's field of view, and modern devices support masking zones that blank your property from the recording in two minutes. Open with the assumption of oversight rather than surveillance — it costs nothing and preserves the relationship a court case would end.
The letter, then the DPC
Where conversation fails, a written request: identify the camera, describe the coverage of your property, ask for adjustment or masking, and set a reasonable period. Photograph the camera and its sightlines and keep the exchange — this record is what every later stage runs on.
The Data Protection Commission accepts complaints about domestic CCTV that exceeds the household sphere, and handles them regularly. A complaint with photographs, dates and the refusal in writing gives the DPC something to act on.
The serious end
Targeted, persistent camera surveillance of a neighbour's home moves beyond a data protection technicality — it can found court proceedings, including damages claims where genuine distress results, and it frequently travels with harassment and nuisance questions on the same facts. Equally, resist the symmetrical response: installing counter-cameras converts your complaint file into a mutual surveillance dossier. Keep the record clean and let the escalation ladder work.
Read more in our main guide: CCTV and Data Protection: Workplaces, Homes and Neighbours · or back to the blog.
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