Well, This is Terrifying: You Won’t Believe What Your Airbnb Host Can Legally Do

Public service announcement of the day: look for cameras. We’re not saying it happens all the time (and it’s certainly creepy), but apparently it’s perfectly within a resident’s rights to film whatever and whomever they damn please in their house. Eek!

The influx of cheap and easily-available (and small) cameras like Dropcam means you need to be extra careful about possible surveillance, even in places you wouldn’t expect. Maybe I’m being naive over here, but until I read about this over at BrickUnderground, it had never even occurred to me that this was a thing. But of course it is. It makes sense that hosts might think keeping tabs on their home is just a smart, protective measure. OR maybe they have something a little more sinister on their minds.

Either way, they seem to have the law on their side. Although this is a dicey area, as of now the only legal (moral is a whole other can of worms) restrictions on filming is in areas considered “private space” like bathroom.

But here’s a twist: footage collected privately can actually come back to haunt the homeowner, too. Like this case in San Francisco, when Gurbaksh Chahal was charged with battery after his own cameras recorded him beating his girlfriend, and prosecutors were able to use the footage to prove his guilt.

And, your cloud storage is certainly not private from the government, should they care to get a warrant; so there’s that.

So, peace of mind or skeezy spying? What do you think of the implications of this technology?

Read more at Fusion.