CCTV Camera Privacy Laws for Home/Business

Companies are required by the PDPA to inform customers when their personal data is being gathered. When utilizing CCTV video for anything other than managing the employment connection between workers and the firm, organizations must tell people and get their permission.

What you should know before installing a CCTV system

Understanding the laws regulating the use of CCTVs is vital before installing any to secure your house, place of business, or other property. Despite the best of intentions, installing CCTV is illegal if authorization was not first obtained from the appropriate parties. This prevents privacy invasion and misuse of video monitoring. The legislation also mandates that you get a permission before setting up a monitoring system to highlight public property.

This stops criminals from placing cameras in public areas with ulterior motives.

Areas where installing CCTV doesn’t need a permission

To put up CCTV on your property, you are not need to get a license. In your HDB, you are allowed to install CCTV cameras, however you cannot do so in the hallway without a license or authorization.

You can be breaching the law if you intend to use the camera in a public area or on someone else’s property without getting authorization from the law enforcement. The same holds true for your shop or company.

Cameras facing an office, business, or store are the only interior locations where surveillance cameras may be put without a license. You do not need a permission to put a camera in your business to watch over your staff, but you should still alert them with a label that is clearly visible. You are breaching the law if you install CCTV cameras in your place of business without telling your staff or clients.

Areas where installing CCTV requires approval

Before installing video surveillance, you must get authorization if you want to keep an eye on things outside of your house or place of business. It is against the law to install CCTV cameras for unauthorized monitoring outside of the workplace or home.

You must show that you have a valid reason to monitor any of these places in order to get approval to install CCTV there. You may seek for approval to install a CCTV camera outside your business, shop, or house if you have had property or personal items stolen in the past.

Locations that shouldn’t have CCTV cameras placed

There are several places where putting a CCTV camera is never a good idea. Whether at home, at a shop, or when doing business, these facilities include private spaces like a toilet or changing room for employees of clothes retailers.

Any of these locations might provide major legal problems if CCTV cameras are installed there. Additionally, installing CCTV cameras targeted at government buildings is not a good idea.

Additionally, it’s against the law to install CCTV voice recordings without permission. If it’s required to record sound, authorization should also be requested.

Install the surveillance system outside the HDB unit

The Town council must provide the necessary authorisation for the installation of CCTV cameras outside the HDB unit. Your front yard is a shared space that the Town government looks after. In accordance with the legislation, installing buildings, machinery, and items—such as CCTV cameras—in public locations requires a permission.

Putting up a business CCTV system

Organizations are governed by the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), which makes installing CCTV cameras for business usage more challenging than installing CCTV cameras for household use.

CCTV cameras that capture personal data, such as photos that may be used to identify a specific person, must be collected, used, or disclosed in accordance with PDPA regulations.