Increasingly, the digital world offers us products and solutions to increase “our security”, but we must be careful not to diminish the protection of the privacy of others …
In this regard, the Spanish Data Protection Agency has ruled on the basis of a complaint and our data protection consultancy Begalvi Abogados has sent us this communication so that our clients have the best information in this regard:
“The Spanish Data Protection Agency has issued a procedural decision imposing a fine of 300 euros on a neighbour for installing a digital peephole on the door of his home.
The complainant, a neighbour of the community, shared a landing with the sanctioned community member. According to the background of the resolution, a digital peephole had been installed “without the prior consent of the Community of Owners of the building in which the dwellings of both parties are located, which would record the common landing and the access door to the complainant’s dwelling”.
It should be noted that in the letter of complaint, various photographs of the peephole, a document with its technical characteristics and a copy of the burofax requesting its removal were provided, a communication that could not be delivered because the addressee was absent.
The established facts state that the “digital peephole is capable of recording the common landing and the access door to the complainant’s home”.
It is also stated in the file that the offending neighbour, when requested to do so by the Agency, did not accept the notification sent to him, nor did he make any submissions in the proceedings in question.
It was not even necessary to prove that recordings had been made by the person who installed the peephole. The mere fact of installing a device with such functionalities has already been considered by the Spanish Data Protection Agency as detrimental to the rights of the affected neighbor.
As can be read in the Fundamentos de Derecho, “in no case will the use of surveillance practices be allowed beyond the environment that is the object of the installation. The cameras installed may not obtain images of private space of third parties and/or public space without duly accredited justified cause, nor may they affect the privacy of passers-by who freely pass through the area”.
In addition to imposing a fine of THREE HUNDRED EUROS (300 €), the Agency orders “the removal of the camera or video camera system from the current location or its reorientation, in such a way that the viewing of the images observed shows that it does not capture common areas of the dwelling or the adjoining dwelling””.
