The dinner guest¶

Research brief, The Morporkian Civil Liberties Union (MCLU). Open file.

Somebody goes to dinner at a friend’s house. There is a doorbell that records the step, a speaker that hears the hall, and a camera over the side gate that has been there so long nobody in the household notices it.

The guest installed nothing, agreed to nothing, opened no account and could not name the company if asked. Their face, their voice and the hour they arrived are recorded anyway.

Ask the householder to delete it and they will say the service holds it. Ask the service and they will say the householder controls the device. Both are telling the truth, and between the two answers there is no door the guest can knock on.

• Who exercises a right over a recording made by somebody else’s device, about a third person who was never party to anything?

• If the householder refuses, is that a private matter between friends or a question for a regulator?

Where the household exemption stops¶

• The household exemption and where it stops. The CJEU has ruled on a camera covering public ground; we need the case, the reasoning and its limits.

• UK county court judgments on domestic doorbell cameras and neighbours, and what they actually decided about audio as against video.

• The data-driven home, Savin and Nielsen, on multi-user households and the interpersonal dimensions EU law does not reach.

• The retention and access terms of two or three actual doorbell services, read rather than summarised: who can delete, who can export, whether a guest has any standing at all.

• Whether any regulator has issued guidance addressed to visitors as opposed to householders.

Last updated: 17 September 2026