Legal rules for hidden cameras


Questioner

We are a youth foundation that organizes all kinds of activities for members in the evenings every week. For this purpose, we have a building. In order to make the budget somewhat financially sound, we rent out part of our building to a well-known postal company. Employees of this company have a key to our building and come to collect their mail during the day, which is delivered in the morning. Inside the building, the spaces are not locked and as such, the employees of the renting party are also able to enter our spaces. This is due to a somewhat unfortunate layout of the building, which means that the employees have to go through our spaces to get to their own spaces. However, for a few weeks now we have noticed that our belongings are disappearing from our storage room, the value is low (a few tens of euros), but it is about the principle and the effort we have to replace it. Now we want to place hidden cameras to catch the perpetrator (who must be in the circle of our tenant, this is 99% certain). However, what are the (privacy) rules regarding this issue. It does not concern our employees directly, but employees of our tenant. We want to use hidden cameras because we would prefer to find out who the culprit is. If cameras are hung up conspicuously, this will probably have a preventive effect and we will never find out who has appropriated our property. It is nice that the theft stops, but the idea that this person still has access to our building through his work makes the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end. That is why we have not yet raised this issue with the tenant because we are afraid that the perpetrator will never be known, because there is no proof of who did it. We want to approach the tenant with concrete legally obtained evidence to solve this problem. The question is, under what conditions are we allowed to hang hidden cameras to catch an employee of our tenant. Informing our members about the cameras is not a problem.

Lawyer

You may hang up the cameras to gather evidence. However, you may not do anything with the images, but that is obvious, for example, make them public. However, if you catch the thief, you may provide this evidence in the civil or criminal case. That is not obtained unlawfully. It is recommended to permanently delete the images after a week.

Lawyer

Hidden cameras are only allowed in exceptional cases. It must be clear that there is no other way to catch the perpetrator. Images must usually be deleted after 24 hours, unless incidents have been recorded. You may, indeed, use the images as evidence. I do not entirely agree with Mrs Ferwerda: it is true that unlawfully obtained evidence may also be used in a procedure, but if you have obtained the images in violation of the law, the Dutch Data Protection Authority or the Public Prosecution Service may indeed take action against it. Bottom line: consider whether there are other ways to catch the perpetrator. If not, put up the cameras. Delete footage that does not show incidents within 24 hours. This will minimize the chance of getting into trouble.

Lawyer

It is unlawfully obtained evidence if the evidence comes from law enforcement officers because, unlike citizens, they are subject to legal requirements in connection with their investigative powers and the rights of suspects. This is different if a private person provides evidence, here I give you a link. Your situation is most comparable to that of the store and the customer, if there is no direct connection between your foundation and the government http://www.cbpweb.nl/Pages/inf_va_filmen_mensen.aspx

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