Your neighbour's camera points at your home: how to stop it
Last updated 2026-09-01 · Reviewed by Jaime Piñeira Pardo, registered with the ICAM bar, no. 138826
The short answer
A camera installed by a private individual falls outside the Regulation only when it captures nothing but the interior of that person's own home. If it reaches your land, your window or the street beyond what is strictly needed, your neighbour is a controller. You demand it be redirected, complain to the AEPD and sue for cessation and damages, with a four year lapse period.
Your neighbour has fitted two cameras under the eaves. One looks at his own garage, but the other sweeps across your garden, your kitchen door and the stretch of pavement your children use. There is no sign warning of it. When you raise it, he answers that it is his house, that he can put up whatever he likes and that in any case he records for security. Since then you avoid the terrace and no longer hang the washing where you always did.
The case, in five lines
- What is brought
- A formal demand to redirect the camera and erase the recordings, a complaint to the AEPD and a civil action for cessation of the unlawful interference with privacy, claiming damages.
- Before which court
- The AEPD (the Spanish data protection authority) on the administrative side and the Civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court) for cessation and damages, through the ordinary procedural routes provided in Organic Law 1/1982.
- Deadline
- Actions against unlawful interference lapse four years after you were in a position to bring them. The images, by contrast, must be deleted within one month of capture, so the evidence is requested before anything else.
- Who can bring it
- Anyone caught by the camera or whose private space falls within the frame. The action is also available where the camera reaches communal areas and affects several neighbours.
- Financial risk
- If it is established that the camera captured only the neighbour's own home, the claim fails and you may bear the costs. A badly judged neighbour dispute can also lead to cross claims.
A home camera only covers the inside of its owner's own house
Article 22 of Organic Law 3/2018 treats as outside the scope of the Regulation the processing by a natural person of images that capture only the interior of that person's own home. The word that decides the matter is only. The moment the lens reaches your garden, your door or your window, the household exception disappears and the neighbour becomes the controller of personal data processing, with everything that carries.
The same provision adds that the exclusion does not cover processing carried out by a private security firm engaged to watch a home and having access to the images. That matters when the installation is not run by the neighbour from his phone but by a company with its own servers: there you face a controller with structure, documented obligations and far more to lose.
Where the camera reaches the public street, Article 22 allows that only to the extent strictly necessary to preserve the safety of persons, property and premises. Wider capture is reserved for strategic property or premises and for transport infrastructure, and it may in no case involve capturing images of the interior of a private home.
Without a basis under Article 6, the recording is unlawful from day one
Article 6 of the Regulation sets out an exhaustive list of when processing is lawful: consent, performance of a contract, legal obligation, vital interests, a public interest task or legitimate interests. Your neighbour does not have your consent, there is no contract between you and he discharges no legal duty by recording you. The only thing he can invoke is the legitimate interest in point (f).
And that point comes with a built in condition: legitimate interest works only where it is not overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject requiring protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child. It is a balancing exercise, not an automatic authorisation, and whoever invokes it must support it with concrete facts, not with the word security.
That is the strong piece of your case. Against a generic fear of burglary you set your household life permanently recorded, your family's too and, if there are children in the frame, the express reinforcement the article itself introduces. A camera that could have served its purpose pointing at its owner's garage and instead sweeps your kitchen does not survive that balancing.
The warning sign does not legalise what the camera may not capture
Article 22 accepts that the duty to inform is satisfied by placing an informative device in a sufficiently visible spot identifying at least the existence of the processing, the identity of the controller and the possibility of exercising the rights in Articles 15 to 22 of the Regulation. It may also include a code or an internet address where that information can be expanded.
It is worth understanding what that sign resolves and what it does not. It resolves the information duty. It does not make the framing lawful, it does not widen the space the camera may watch and it does not replace the basis under Article 6. A neighbour who puts up the sign and carries on recording your garden has met an ancillary duty while breaching the main one.
The absence of the informative device does count. It adds a standalone breach to the file, reinforces the account of an installation put up with no prior thought and makes it easier to explain why you could not exercise your rights sooner: you did not know who the controller was or whom to address. That is why the whole façade is photographed before the first letter is written.
The images are deleted within a month: the evidence is urgent
Article 22 requires the data to be deleted within one month of capture, except where they must be kept to evidence acts against the integrity of persons, property or premises. In that case the images must be made available to the competent authority within a maximum of seventy two hours from the moment the recording became known.
That month is your window. If you want to prove the real reach of the framing with the neighbour's own recordings, they must be requested immediately by exercising the right of access, because afterwards deletion will be legitimate and you will be left arguing about angles with photographs taken from below. Speed here is not a virtue, it is the difference between having evidence and not.
The same article specifies that the blocking obligation laid down in that organic law does not apply to this processing. It is worth knowing so as not to build the strategy on a retention that does not exist: what is not requested in time will not be sitting there waiting for the proceedings, and the case will have to rest on the physical siting of the camera.
The AEPD orders it taken down, the civil court sets the price
The complaint to the AEPD works to have the processing stopped and to have the neighbour receive a ruling with force behind it. What the authority does not do is compensate you for the months lived under the lens. That is what the protection in Organic Law 1/1982 and Article 82 of the Regulation are for, the latter recognising a right to compensation for material or non material damage.
Civil protection covers every measure needed to end the interference: a declaration that it occurred, immediate cessation, restoration of the earlier position, prevention of imminent or further interference and compensation for loss. That reference to further interference is what stops the camera being turned back round the moment the matter is closed.
And the burden of proof helps you at a decisive point: harm is presumed whenever unlawful interference is established. Compensation extends to non material harm and is assessed by reference to the circumstances of the case and the seriousness of the injury actually caused. Once the framing is proved, the argument becomes how much, not whether there was damage.
How we run the case, step by step
- 1
Establish the actual framing before saying anything
We document the position of each camera, its height, its tilt and the line of sight from your property, with dated photographs taken from inside and outside. The case is won or lost on the angle, not on the anger.
- 2
Request access to the recordings within the month
We exercise the right of access against the neighbour as controller, asking for a copy of what was captured and for information on purposes, recipients and retention. After the month the images are lawfully deleted and that evidence no longer exists.
- 3
Demand in writing that it be redirected and the data erased
A formal demand explains which part of the framing is unlawful, gives a short deadline to redirect and erase, and warns of the steps that follow. His reply, or his silence, later becomes the best document in the file.
- 4
Complain to the AEPD
The complaint sets out the siting, the lack of any basis under Article 6, the absence of the informative device where that applies and the demand that went unanswered. The authority may order corrective measures aimed at ending the breach.
- 5
Sue for cessation and damages
The civil claim seeks a declaration of the interference, immediate cessation, restoration of the earlier position, prevention of further interference and compensation for non material harm. It is filed within the four year lapse period.
- 6
Watch that the camera is not turned back round
Once the decision or judgment is obtained, the new framing is checked on the ground and recorded photographically. If the orientation shifts again, the measure preventing further interference allows a response without starting from scratch.
The evidence that decides the case
- Dated photographs of each camera from your property and from the street, with the height and tilt visible.
- A technical report or a formal record establishing the actual field of view of the lens fitted.
- The copy of the recordings obtained through the right of access before the one month retention period expires.
- Evidence that there is no visible informative device, or a photograph of the one there is and of what it omits.
- The demand sent and its proof of delivery, together with the neighbour's reply or the absence of one.
- The plan or title deed showing which part of what is captured is your own private space.
What closes the door
- Covering, turning or damaging the camera yourself. It turns the victim into the accused and ruins a case that was won on the angle.
- Putting up a camera of your own aimed at the neighbour. It multiplies the fronts and places you in the very controller position you are attacking.
- Letting the month run without requesting access to the recordings. Deletion is then legitimate and the direct evidence of the framing is gone.
- Arguing it only face to face on the landing. Without a written demand there is no date, no proven refusal and no file to build on.
- Stopping at the AEPD's decision. It orders and it fines, but the non material harm of the months recorded is claimed before the civil court.
The law that applies
- Art. 22 LOPDGDD. It allows camera image processing to preserve the safety of persons, property and premises; it permits capturing the public street only so far as strictly necessary and never the interior of a private home; it requires deletion within one month, save for retention to evidence acts against integrity, with the images made available to the authority within seventy two hours; it satisfies the information duty through a visible device; and it excludes from the Regulation a private individual's capture of nothing but the interior of their own home. BOE-A-2018-16673
- Art. 6 RGPD. It exhaustively lists the bases that make processing lawful: consent, performance of a contract, legal obligation, vital interests, a public interest task and legitimate interests. The last operates only where it is not overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject, in particular a child, and is unavailable to public authorities acting in the performance of their tasks. 32016R0679
- Art. 9 LO 1/1982. Judicial protection against unlawful interference covers restoring the injured party with a declaration of the interference, immediate cessation and restoration of the earlier position, prevention of imminent or further interference, compensation and recovery of any profit obtained, without prejudice to interim relief. Harm is presumed once the interference is proved, and the actions lapse four years after they could be brought. BOE-A-1982-11196
- Art. 82 RGPD. It gives anyone who has suffered material or non material damage from an infringement of the Regulation the right to compensation from the controller or the processor, which is exempt only on proof of not being in any way responsible for the damaging event. Court actions are brought before the courts competent under the law of the Member State indicated in Article 79.2. 32016R0679
Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).
Frequently asked questions
Can my neighbour record the street in front of his door?
Only so far as strictly necessary to preserve the safety of persons, property and premises. Capturing the public street more widely is reserved for strategic property or premises and for transport infrastructure, and it may in no case involve capturing images of the interior of a private home. A whole stretch of pavement does not fit there.
What if the camera does not record, it only watches?
The question is not settled by whether a stored file exists. The rule speaks of processing images through camera or video camera systems, and watching the inside of your property live is processing your data just as storing it is. Besides, an installation said not to record usually has a mobile app, and with it a history worth requesting.
Do I have to complain to the AEPD before suing?
It is not a compulsory prior step. They are two separate routes with separate purposes: the authority stops the processing and may impose a fine, and the civil court declares the interference and sets the compensation. In practice both are opened, because the administrative decision finding the breach later enters the civil case as a first rate document.
Does it help that he has put up a video surveillance sign?
It satisfies the information duty if it is sufficiently visible and identifies at least the existence of the processing, the identity of the controller and the possibility of exercising the rights in Articles 15 to 22 of the Regulation. But informing is not the same as being authorised: the sign does not widen the space the camera may capture nor supply the lawful basis Article 6 requires.
How long do I have to bring a claim?
Actions against unlawful interference lapse four years after the person entitled was in a position to bring them. That is a lapse period, not a limitation period, and it is not interrupted by conversations or by letters to the neighbour. Quite different, and far shorter, is the useful window to obtain the recordings, which are deleted within one month of capture.
This guide explains how the action works in general. It does not replace the study of your own case: deadlines depend on when things happened and on what you have done since.