23 Mar 2021, 09:00

A man complained that he felt intimidated by the presence of his neighbour’s security camera that was directed towards the back gate of his property. The man’s complaint raised issues under section 27 of the Privacy Act 2020.

Section 27

Section 27 provides that the Privacy Act does not apply to personal information that is collected, used or disclosed by an individual acting in their own personal or domestic affairs.

In this case, the neighbour was acting in their personal capacity by installing and using a security camera at their private residence for household security purposes. Therefore, we found the neighbour was acting in the course of their own domestic affairs, so the Privacy Act did not apply. 

Section 27- the exception

The exception to section 27 is if the collection, use or disclosure of the personal information by an individual would be highly offensive to the reasonable person. This is a high threshold and generally involves particularly sensitive information, such as surveillance of private areas like bathrooms or bedrooms.

We considered whether the camera’s capture of the complainant’s back gate met the threshold. We found that it did not reach the level of being highly offensive for the purposes of the Privacy Act.

Outcome

Since the neighbour was acting in his personal capacity and the collection of information was not highly offensive, the matter fell outside the scope of the Privacy Act. We informed the complainant of this decision and closed the file.