A Lighter Note - Thank You So Much For The Web Cams

[trambo]

49 minutes ago, MotorBoater said:

Checked PH three times so far today and the Ranger has been there in three different positions.

Oooer mrs! 

[DAVIDH]

1 hour ago, Broads01 said:

I can't see how they can offer that until they know what the next rule change will be. It would be virtually impossible to police whether all the occupants were from the same household.

I agree, but it's no different to knowing whether the groups of people on a beach/in a park are from the same household. If HW do open for day boats on the 4th June, I guess they will expect people to have maintained their isolation within household groups? Can see it being difficult to give instructions on how to pilot the boat without getting up close and personal though.

[Hylander]

Just looked at the Norfolk Riverside Cottages web cam.      There is a guy there outside of his cottage enjoying a beer in the sun.    A bit intrusive to say the least for people hiring those places dont you think?   I have done my best to disguise him.

 

 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Well, if I owned the cottage I might warn any renters before they booked. 

[Guest]

Get the rope out...."there's gonna be a hangin"..

[Hylander]

1 hour ago, Jemaki said:

Get the rope out...."there's gonna be a hangin"..

Really,  have you got nothing special on this evening.!!!!   I was, no am concerned for the folk renting the property. 

 

 

 

 

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, Hylander said:

Just looked at the Norfolk Riverside Cottages web cam.      There is a guy there outside of his cottage enjoying a beer in the sun.    A bit intrusive to say the least for people hiring those places dont you think?   I have done my best to disguise him.

I strongly object to this.

If we are ever going to get the Norfolk Broads back running again, we are not going to do it by making assumptions about what we might - or might not - have seen on some-one else's webcam.

We don't even know if the person concerned (who we are told has been hidden) is actually the owner, or anything to do with the property.

And do we actually suggest that someone is at risk of catching some virus, because of what we see (or don't actually see) in this webcam screenshot?

Do please let's concentrate on the "end game".

 

 

[MauriceMynah]

I rather think that the issue Hylander was errr… highlighting, was one of privacy rather than one of lockdown. Did the fellow know he was being broadcast. that sort of thing.

[Vaughan]

17 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

Did the fellow know he was being broadcast. that sort of thing.

So what?

Are we now supposed to report back to the forum with our comments, because we have seen someone, on an internet webcam, sitting on the riverbank having a beer?

We are never going to get back to normal, as Broads lovers, if we behave like this.

 

[Poppy]

4 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

So what?

Are we now supposed to report back to the forum with our comments, because we have seen someone, on an internet webcam, sitting on the riverbank having a beer?

We are never going to get back to normal, as Broads lovers, if we behave like this.

 

I agree. We've enough 'Warden Hodges' about , without having them on here .

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Poppy said:

I agree. We've enough 'Warden Hodges' about , without having them on here .

I'm totally bemused at how this nice thread progressed to where it has over a picture of the river with a scribbled out head...someone needs to get out more....oh no you can't!... 

[ExSurveyor]

4 hours ago, Hylander said:

Just looked at the Norfolk Riverside Cottages web cam.      There is a guy there outside of his cottage enjoying a beer in the sun.    A bit intrusive to say the least for people hiring those places dont you think?   I have done my best to disguise him.

I can't see that this is anything other than an observation that a potential hirer may not be aware of the webcam and might appreciate being advised. Nothing about lockdown or catching the virus.

[Vaughan]

The other day we had an inquest as to why Herbert Woods had moved some of their day boats off a mooring, as though they were supposed to have asked us first and now we have this.

I suggest in these very difficult times and to avoid confusion due to total lack of any evidence, that it would be a great deal better for all of us if we could avoid the voyeuristic temptations of "trial" by other people's webcams.

[unclemike]

you are missing the point again, vaughan,this was not "trial by forum" just an observation that the person in the webcam picture might consider it an invasion of his privacy,thus monica blanked it out as showing it on here  would not be kosher

[Broads01]

I don't understand why being on a webcam is an invasion of privacy. We spend our lives being caught on camera, be they webcams, security cameras, somebody's phone or whatever. If you don't want to be on camera, stay at home. A riverside garden is in public view.

[unclemike]

it becomes an invasion when posted on social media

[Broads01]

58 minutes ago, chameleon said:

it becomes an invasion when posted on social media

I agree but the original post wasn't talking about that. 

[Vaughan]

11 hours ago, chameleon said:

it becomes an invasion when posted on social media

I may have missed the point of Monica's intention but I think this point is being missed as well.  These webcams are only seen on social media for a particular technical reason.

They are installed by businesses such as boatyards for security, so that their owners can view them when they are at home, or even from elsewhere, such as in a restaurant.  In order to be able to do this, the image must be streamed online by internet.  This means we, the public, also have access to them but I don't feel that we should start to expect them, as a "public service" nor should we start complaining if they don't work! 

I am personally uncomfortable about this and see it as the equivalent of sitting in a train reading someone else's newspaper over their shoulder. Or perhaps walking down a street deliberately peering in people's windows.

I am not saying we should not watch them and I know a lot of people get pleasure from doing so but I think we should respect what they are actually there for and should certainly not try to judge, on a forum, anything we see on them that we don't happen to like the look of.

[Meantime]

3 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

I may have missed the point of Monica's intention but I think this point is being missed as well.  These webcams are only seen on social media for a particular technical reason.

They are installed by businesses such as boatyards for security, so that their owners can view them when they are at home, or even from elsewhere, such as in a restaurant.  In order to be able to do this, the image must be streamed online by internet.  This means we, the public, also have access to them but I don't feel that we should start to expect them, as a "public service" nor should we start complaining if they don't work! 

I am personally uncomfortable about this and see it as the equivalent of sitting in a train reading someone else's newspaper over their shoulder. Or perhaps walking down a street deliberately peering in people's windows.

I am not saying we should not watch them and I know a lot of people get pleasure from doing so but I think we should respect what they are actually there for and should certainly not try to judge, on a forum, anything we see on them that we don't happen to like the look of.

There are a number of inaccuracies there Vaughan which would possibly completely alter your thinking on the subject.

If installing a webcam for your own personal security use it can be connected to the internet and secured so that only those people with the correct user name and password or web address etc can access them. They can also be set such that the content can be viewed by an app. Ring video doorbells or security cameras are a prime example. Once installed the footage is available over the internet to the person with the correct credentials installed into the app on their phone or tablet, PC etc.

Public webcams such as the ones listed on the holiday cottage rental website that Hylander showed are exactly that. Public. They are put there to encourage traffic to their website in the hope that someone may then decide to book a holiday. They are generally not recorded by the owner and therefore have very limited use in terms of security. Because the access is not secured any member of the public via the website can access the live footage.

As it happens I do have an issue with the ones that Hylander showed because the camera covers the gardens of other holiday cottages possibly not owned by the owner of the web cam. One of the cameras on that site shows the gardens of the cottages at Kingsline I think they are called. The ones next to The Ferry pub. Do the people who rent those cottages know that there is a webcam spying on them the whole time? Whilst it could be argued that the gardens front on to a river and therefore there is no privacy, most people passing in a boat would catch a glimpse of the occupants for a few seconds and be gone. Via the webcams you could study the people in the garden for hours!!!

People need to bear in mind that CCTV is generally for security, normally recorded and can be streamed over the internet securely for private viewing by the owner or a security company. Usage is regulated by the ICO and subject to data protection. Even private individuals who install CCTV on their own home will generally be expected to not overlook the public highway unnecessarily, unless they can show it is unavoidable to show the access to their property or front door, or the area of their property that is vulnerable. Webcams used for security tend to be subject to some or all the conditions for CCTV. Public live streamed webcams are not generally recorded and not subject to the same requirements. The last category are not generally for security but public entertainment and the webcams Hylander highlighted fall into that category. The moment you capture an image from one of them, and publish it to the internet such as this forum or other social media you or the platform you publish it on, can become liable for certain actions under section 8 of The Human Rights Act. Hylander was right in my opinion to attempt to block out the face. 

[grendel]

Vaughan, if they so wished it could be set up via a secure link, you dont have to allow a live link to a webcam, that is done as a choice, it also uses data from your service, this means that it costs the more people connect. of course for a business this is a deductible item as advertising, so if a webcam link is provided by a website, it is provided as part of their business.

so i dont think we should worry that we are peering over someones shoulder or through their window,  the window analogy would be more like a shop window to see what you are getting, or one of the windows down a certain street in amsterdam.

Monicas point of do the people hiring the guest house know, well maybe, maybe not, but the camera angle seems that you would only be seen if right by the river edge, and to be fair, anything you might do would be visible to any boats passing anyway.

 

[Meantime]

2 minutes ago, grendel said:

Monicas point of do the people hiring the guest house know, well maybe, maybe not, but the camera angle seems that you would only be seen if right by the river edge, and to be fair, anything you might do would be visible to any boats passing anyway.

 

That may be true for the property the camera is installed at. But what about the one that is looking towards the mooring opposite The Ferry pub, which also captures the gardens of the King Line cottages? Do they or their guests know they are being watched 24x7?

[Vaughan]

42 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

and should certainly not try to judge, on a forum, anything we see on them that we don't happen to like the look of.

Thank you both for those explanations, which are most enlightening but I think my point, above, still holds true.

[Meantime]

To expand on your point a little further Vaughan and why I think it was right for Hylander to mask out the face in the picture posted, let's consider the webcam at Herbert Woods that is pointed at the bridge. Let's assume a boat attempts to go through the bridge and does something wrong and crashes into the bridge. It is possible that at any one time there could be 10 or 20 people viewing the webcam and witness the collision. If someone then started a topic on here about what they had just seen on the webcam that would just be another discussion. A bit like someone saying I've been up the road shopping and just witnessed the most stupid, or funny, or dangerous thing etc, and then talking about it. However it is possible to load utilities on your PC that enable you to record or capture the footage from the webcam you are viewing. If you then posted (published) a clip of that footage to a forum such as this, with a view to ridiculing that persons actions, or implying some kind of criminal intent, then you leave yourself as the publisher and the platform you publish on, the forum, open to action, especially if they could be identified because there is a clear shot of their face, or perhaps the boat registration number etc. Keeping such footage for your own personal amusement is an entirely different matter.

[Hylander]

Oh dear - sorry I did no mean to cause any problems.    My way of thinking (Lord help us) is that when you are relaxing on holiday , the last thing you want on your mind is, who is watching.      I had not realised that you would see people so close to the camera as that poor chap enjoying his pint was.    I could not scribble anymore out otherwise he would have been non existent.   I wish I could put the little squares on the face but I dont know how to achieve that one.

 

 

[Tempest]

9 minutes ago, Hylander said:

Oh dear - sorry I did no mean to cause any problems.    My way of thinking (Lord help us) is that when you are relaxing on holiday , the last thing you want on your mind is, who is watching.      I had not realised that you would see people so close to the camera as that poor chap enjoying his pint was.    I could not scribble anymore out otherwise he would have been non existent.   I wish I could put the little squares on the face but I dont know how to achieve that one.

 

 

It's a good job the title of the post is "on a lighter note"

😂🤣

Personally, cameras never bother me and I would happily see them on every home and street corner if it prevented the dregs of society harming or stealing from the vulnerable, but fully understand those who don't

I also love webcams and on many occasions have watched the goings on at Wroxham and PH for example and yes I have waved at the Barnes Brinkscraft camera whilst meandering by like some crazed idiot!!

👋👋👋👋