Orange is pleasant to walk around. The houses are unique and interesting, the people are friendly, and sometimes there are dogs outside you can say hi to (and I say hi to every single one). Even in the quieter neighborhoods, it’s still a lively place. At least, during the day.

At night, it’s perfectly quiet and still. Because of this, I like to walk around at night; sometimes to help digest a large meal, sometimes just to think a bit before bed. Despite the solitude, I don’t feel entirely alone, because I’m being watched by a network of doorbell cameras. Some of them are set far enough back that I’m pretty sure they can’t see me. Others are close enough that they come alive and emit a faint glow when I walk by. Can they see in the dark? Does someone get a push notification alerting them to my presence? I’m not breaking the law, but it feels like I am.

I’m interested in privacy rights, and how technology makes it easy to surveil entire groups of people, always without their consent. I believe that people have a right to know when they’re being watched, and by whom, at least as long as recording in public remains legal. To that end, I’m starting to map doorbell cameras.

I did some research beforehand to see what the community thinks of mapping private objects. I’m still new, and I want to make sure I contribute in a way that is welcome and helpful. The Good practice page also reads: “Be brave in what you add…”

I read the Mapping private information wiki page. As far as I can tell, nothing there explicitly prohibits doorbell camera mapping. I believe I can also satisfy verifiability requirements: someone with a reasonably up-to-date prescription could stand on the same sidewalk and verify that these devices exist at a given location.

I also found a forum thread with some lively debate. The arguments I read in favor were convincing. Then, I checked the map, which had 1,121 camera:mount=doorbell tags, some of which go quite far back.

Solar panels and swimming pools, also private objects, are mapped from imagery all the time. It’s not difficult at all to see several of the cameras I mapped on Google StreetView, so this isn’t even a theoretical thing. Whether or not you own a doorbell camera, foliage and delivery trucks permitting, has already been made public by Google anyway. (Ironically, one of the cameras I mapped was for a house whose owners have had their house removed from StreetView.)

I would also make a moral argument for mapping them. These are private devices which nevertheless do sometimes record public spaces, and then send that data to corporations that don’t have our best interests at heart. I believe everyone has a right to know exactly when, where, and how they’re being recorded. (I would rather people not be recorded at all, but you work with the laws you have, not the laws you want.)

If we will continue to not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public, the next best thing we can do is inform ourselves and others of when they’re being surveilled by corporate interests, especially people who have no choice but to interact with surveilled residences. Delivery drivers and mail carriers don’t get a choice about whether or not they’re recorded by these devices.

So, after my walk a couple nights ago, I decided to add some of this data to OpenStreetMap. With just what I could see from the sidewalk–I want to make it very clear that I never once set foot on private property–I added nine doorbell cameras from a survey. I have already added more.

I was partially inspired by the recent news coverage of Flock, the ALPR surveillance company (with many cameras in Southern California) that provides a service that law enforcement can use entirely warrantlessly. Some law enforcement officials have already used this information to stalk or harass people they know.

If nothing else, seeing our neighborhoods lit up with doorbell cameras like so many Christmas trees will tell us a lot about the places we live.