Re:Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal
by matthewfcarlson on Thursday February 19, 2026 @03:35PM
(#47078875)
The US gives you no expectation of privacy in public places and private property is generally do what you want. It gets murkier if your cameras are pointed at other private property (your neighbors).
Not a legal expert just what I’ve heard.
Re:Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal
by thfuran on Thursday February 19, 2026 @04:05PM
(#47079369)
As I understand it (which probably isn’t well), expectation of privacy on private spaces in the US gets pretty wonky. Like being in plain view on a front lawn wouldn’t have expectation of privacy but being behind a fence would even if the fence doesn’t do a good job of blocking sight lines.
Re:Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal
by subscribed on Friday February 20, 2026 @05:01AM
(#47085919)
I've got several cameras outside my house, but these recording 24/7 are adjusted to capture my property only (garden, front drive, entrances etc)
That's legal.
If someone gets recorded that's because they left the public land and entered mine.
Re:Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal
by embedding-shape on Friday February 20, 2026 @08:55AM
(#47088074)
> That's legal.
That makes sense, you're not actually recording public spaces, that'd be legal here too. "all the outward facing cameras from your home" makes it sound like that's including public spaces though, but maybe I'm just reading it too strictly.
Re:Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal
by subscribed on Friday February 20, 2026 @06:52PM
(#47095738)
I think I didn't phrase them enough. Tey're _facing_ the public spaces (pavement, street) or neighbours (other gardens) but they're tilted or masked that way, they simply don't capture anyone unless they stray onto my property.
Is that legal though? I'm guessing it the US it might be, given the amount of cameras of public places you can see in various communities, but wonder how common that is. Where I live (Spain) it's not legal to just stick a camera on your house and record public places, you need to put the camera in a way so you're only filming your private property or similar.