Do you want a camera in your kid's bedroom??

This morning's disturbing privacy story is the revelation that live feeds from thousands of 'home security cameras' run by the US company Trendnet have been 'breached', allowing anyone on the net access to video feeds, without the need for a password. It was reported in the BBC here, by their technology reporter Leo Kelion.

It's a disturbing tale. As Kelion describes it:

"Internet addresses which link to the video streams have been posted to a variety of popular messageboard sites. Users have expressed concern after finding they could view children's bedrooms among other locations. US-based Trendnet says it is in the process of releasing updates to correct a coding error introduced in 2010."

The internet being what it is, news of the problem seems to have spread faster than Trendnet has been able to control it. This is from Kelion's piece again:

"Within two days a list of 679 web addresses had been posted to one site, and others followed - in some cases listing the alleged Google Maps locations associated with each camera. Messages on one forum included: "someone caught a guy in denmark (traced to ip) getting naked in the bathroom." Another said: "I think this guy is doing situps."


One user wrote "Baby Spotted," causing another to comment "I feel like a pedophile watching this".

A cautionary tale, one might think, and to privacy people like me a lot of questions immediately come to mind. Many of them, particularly the technical ones, have been answered in Kelion's piece. There is one question, however, that is conspicuous by its absence from Kelion's otherwise excellent piece: what are the cameras doing in children's bedrooms in the first place? Is it normal, now, to have this kind of level of surveillance in our private homes? In our children's bedrooms?

I asked Kelion about this on twitter, and his initial (and admirably instant) response was that security cameras were nothing new, but the breach in the feeds was. That was news, the presence of the cameras was not. That set me thinking - and made me write this blog. Is he right? Should we just 'accept' the presence of surveillance even in our most intimate and private places? The success of companies like Trendnet suggests that many thousands of people do accept it - but I hope that millions more don't. I also hope that an affair like this will make some people think twice before installing their own 'private' big brother system.

Surveillance is a double-edged sword. Just as any data on the internet is ultimately vulnerable, so is any data feed - the only way for data not to be vulnerable is for it not to exist. Those parents wanting to protect their children from being watched in the internet have a simple solution: don't install the cameras in the first place!

It's the same story over and over again in the world of privacy and surveillance. We build systems, gather data, set up infrastructures and then seem shocked and amazed when they prove vulnerable. It shouldn't be a surprise... we should think before we build, think before we design, think before we install...