Sentinel Pan Tilt Camera : Tips and Tricks

Sentinel Camera Tips and Tricks

Marko's Tips

This is my playground.
Look here for ways to optimize your Sentinel options, and feel free to add your own tips and questions as you have them. I hope this page grows with every person who sees it!

My first post here is not so much a tip as it is the attempt to answer a frequently asked question. This one required a bit more explaining than others...

Sentinel and audio

A lot people ask me why the Sentinel^TM does not support Audio. The answer is simple and then again not...

Audio Recording with Surveillance Cameras

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, say that the law concerning recording of conversations is not "settled" yet, because the technology is so new, there is a patchwork of federal, state, and local laws governing the manufacture, sale, transport, and use of video and audio recording devices. The patchwork is complex because the federal laws don't pre-empt the local ones. So your local jurisdiction could make a law more stringent than the federal one, or the state one. Each jurisdiction is so different.

You can find The Center for Social & Legal Research website for privacy issues at:

http://www.privacyexchange.org/
http://www.privacyrights.org/index.htm

Very often, the audio picked up by a video camera is covered by the same laws as wiretapping and eavesdropping. Those laws vary by state.

For example in California, the Penal Code states:

"635. (a) Every person who manufactures, assembles, sells, offers for sale, advertises for sale, possesses, transports, imports, or furnishes to another any device which is primarily or exclusively designed or intended for eavesdropping upon the communication of another, or any device which is primarily or exclusively designed or intended for the unauthorized interception or reception of communications between cellular radio telephones or between a cellular radio telephone and a landline telephone in violation of Section 632.5, or communications between cordless telephones or between a cordless telephone and a landline telephone in violation of Section 632.6, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment. If the person has previously been convicted of a violation of this section, the person shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment."

The California code does make exceptions for those providing the devices for federal, state, or local law enforcement officers, or public utilities.

There is a general rule, however, that applies to the kind of conversations a business security camera or nanny-cam would pick up.

"Regardless of the state, it is almost always illegal to record a conversation to which you are not a party, do not have consent to tape, and could not naturally overhear."

So, lawmakers have not yet caught up with new and modern products like the Sentinel^TM. To not endanger you or ourselves we decided to not equip the Sentinel^TM with audio capabilities. And that is the story behind that. See you soon.

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