Police regularly force people to give up footage from doorbell cameras: report
The police regularly force Netherlands residents to give up footage recorded by their doorbell cameras for crime investigations. Communication with the public always focuses on voluntary cooperation between the police and citizens, but in practice, the police almost always use coercion, BNR reports after its own investigation. “The rise of the smart doorbell has made citizens the target of coercive measures on a large scale,” the broadcaster concluded.
A resident of the Randje Ondiep neighborhood in Utrecht got two police officers on her doorstep after an explosion nearby. The cops spotted her smart doorbell from the street. “If you could provide images, that would be very nice,” they told her. She gave them her email address and, within a few hours, received a demand email containing threatening legal language. She had to submit images within seven days. Refusing is a punishable offense. “I wasn’t even sure I had images, so I’m worried about what will happen if I can’t provide any,” she told BNR.
Inquiries by BNR at ten regional police forces, the National Police, and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) showed that requisitioning footage from owners of doorbell cameras is now standard practice. After a crime, police officers walk the neighborhood and check for cameras door to door. Refusing a demand for footage is a punishable offense that can lead to a fine or a prison sentence of up to three months. The OM told BNR that it has “not yet happened” that the owner of a doorbell camera refused to comply with a demand.
The implication is that anyone with a doorbell camera can become a target of such a demand, risking prison or a fine if they refuse. “The fact that the police can demand images fits in with a broader trend,” Vincent Böhre, lawyer and director of the Privacy First Foundation, told the broadcaster. “Namely, that citizens and companies increasingly seem to be becoming an extension of the police and judiciary.” Böhre worries about “a development towards a kind of police state.”
Lawyers also warned that the addresses of unsuspecting citizens could end up in criminal files as a result of the footage they provide. Suspects have the right to see all evidence against them, including the demand for footage, which shows the name and address of the doorbell camera’s owner. Such information can only be blocked out under exceptional circumstances, police spokesperson Luna van Heerwaarden said. For example, when “there have already been unpleasant experiences with the perpetrator.”
According to BNR, a search through the online register of legal cases on Rechtspraak.nl showed that doorbell camera owners’ names and addresses do end up in criminal files. For example, footage from a doorbell camera was used as evidence in the fatal stabbing of a woman in Hengelo on 24 December 2019. The camera owner’s name and address are included in the verdict.
