Smile - You're Caught on Camera!

 Mike Bodnar investigates the rise and rise of doorbell cameras, and asks, are they any good?

A popular video doorbell.
Image: The Sun

Ding-dong! It's a sound that always makes us drop everything and head to the front door to see who it is. An unexpected parcel? A surprise visitor? The bailiffs again? We don't know of course until we open the door itself to find out. Or at least that's the way it used to be. Now of course we can see who's there from the safety and comfort of our home - or even overseas if we're lucky enough to be there - thanks to doorbell video cameras. 

While intercom-type doorbell systems have been around for decades, and ordinary electric doorbells much longer (since 1881 in fact), video camera doorbells only really captured the market big-time around 2012. Their rapid rise in popularity since then has been aided by developments in Internet and wireless technology, plus the fact that there is plenty of competition in the marketplace and prices have been dropping steadily. Home security has never been so affordable, or convenient.

But just how useful is video doorbell technology? The answer is both positive and negative depending on the circumstances. Let's start with two negative case studies, because bad news always travels fast.

Lorraine has a video doorbell camera installed at her suburban home in Surrey. It gives a good view of her driveway, her car parked outside, and the front of the property where the driveway meets the street. It also works at night, although the video capture is in black and white.

Caught in the act on Lorraine's video doorbell

One evening recently she was alerted to some movement out the front, and, on investigation, she discovered that a thief had come up her drive, grabbed her two topiary trees in their planters from beside the front door and had run back to his car and driven off with them.

Furious at the brazen nature of the theft (her front porch lights were on too), she took to social media and posted the video of the culprit stealing the plants in the hope someone might be able to identify him.

Social media quickly responded - not with a positive identification unfortunately, but with some helpful suggestions as to what to do next. Despite the modern camera, it was night, the culprit is a bit blurred in the video, and the logo on his shirt is not clear. His car, parked across the front of her driveway, is identifiable as to make and model, but no registration number is visible as it's seen side-on. Its colour is also unknown.

A better image kindly provided by a local

But one amateur sleuth noticed that a public bus had driven past at the time the theft was taking place and suggested that since buses usually have dashcams maybe the company could supply footage showing the thief's car's number plate. Someone else provided a link to the bus company's website, while another Facebook follower enhanced the culprit's image for Lorraine.

Many others shared the footage far and wide, and of course recommended she tell the police, which she had done.

Alas, when I contacted her about a week later, the plant thief was still at large and the case remained unsolved, despite an outpouring of community rage and concern. The bus company wouldn't provide their dashcam footage - citing 'data protection' - while the police, Lorraine says, hadn't responded. (Anyway, if they had caught the thief with the stolen goods he probably would have claimed it was a plant. See what I did there?)

Joking apart, Lorraine is very disappointed that despite the culprit being caught in the act there's not enough clear evidence for any action to be taken. The only good thing to come out of this is the way the community responded with suggestions, advice and of course sympathy. There are still some good people out there.

Case study number two is a cautionary tale, summed up simply as: if you've got a video doorbell camera, use it.

Jayne lives on our street where there's no private parking - everyone has to park on the roadside. Her partner's motorbike was outside her house on the kerbside, but one morning they discovered that someone had apparently backed into it, or even over it. The handlebars and front forks were bent, bits of fairing were detached, but - bizarrely - the culprit had picked the bike up and put it back on its stand a couple of car-lengths down the road before driving off. No note was left, no offer of compensation or admission of guilt.

Luckily Jayne has a video doorbell camera. Unluckily it was switched it off at the time the damage was caused. No evidence, no culprit, nothing. To say that she feels embarrassed and annoyed is an understatement, and you can be sure she will keep the camera active at all times from now on. But of course it's too late. The motorcycle has been written off by the insurance company with little prospect of recouping any costs. Her partner is still fuming. And hitching rides.

A trawl of the Internet shows there have been many, many instances where thieves have been snapped on camera, but not always caught in real life. Police responses to video footage from door cams vary hugely - some instances show police immediately recognising a culprit from previous offences, others demonstrate what appears to be a complete lack of interest.

Amazon have bought the Ring company and
are partnering with police departments.
Image: The Sun

Here in England in 2019, The Sunday Times and The Sun tabloid revealed that Amazon's Ring Video Doorbells were being offered to various police forces for them to promote to their communities - either handing them out free and/or offering discount vouchers for purchase.

 A Ring spokesperson was quoted as saying that its technology 'had led to amazing results,' while Detective Superintendent Andy Smith of Suffolk police added, 'This is massively powerful for us.  We have had at least four prolific criminals captured as a consequence of Ring doorbells.'

Media however also reported concerns from privacy and criminal justice watchdogs about the partnership between Amazon's Ring doorbells and the police, citing worries over privacy and the 'Big Brother' implications of the surveillance technology. The Guardian reported disturbing evidence that in the United States Amazon had even created press release templates for police departments to use in promoting the Ring partnerships, even going as far as requiring sign-off of any media releases by Amazon executives before dispatch.

A video doorbell with security concerns,
according to Which? magazine. 
Image: Which?

Meanwhile, consumer watchdog magazine Which? revealed that some of the cheaper video doorbell options widely available online are extremely prone to hacking, often not encrypting passwords. Some can very easily be stolen too as they are not hard-wired to the house, and then on-sold. In fact, just last month police in Poole, Dorset recovered 18 stolen video doorbells, possibly the most ironic example of theft given that the doorbells themselves are designed to deter thieves.

A Poole police spokesperson said, 'Following a spate of Ring doorbell thefts in Poole North, enquiries have been made at two addresses and suspects identified. Eighteen camera doorbells have been recovered today and I am in the process of linking these back with their owners.'

Oh the irony! Stolen security video doorbells.
Image: Daily Echo

Actual statistics of just how effective video doorbells have been in catching criminals however are hard to find. Usually such success stories either detail one specific crime caught on camera (such as this story, 'Delivery driver and passenger steal bike'), or vague statements like this from last year by Edinburgh police: '...[we] have been able to make "a number of good arrests across the city" thanks to the technology.' Well, two is a number, but how many arrests did they actually make? We don't know.

Of course, not everyone captured on a video doorbell is a criminal. Sarah, another Surrey resident recently snapped a man on her doorbell video who was doing a good deed. He had found her daughter's lost wallet and personally returned it to her. She said on a local Facebook group page, 'In the midst of an emotional meltdown ... I didn’t thank him enough. I didn’t ask his name, or offer any gesture for his kindness and I feel awful. He went above and beyond and his timing was perfect to allow us to make a really important appointment. Please let me know if he is in this group or on Facebook?' She included a very clear image of the man ringing her doorbell, and not stealing her plants.

Know this kind gent?

Despite being shared 228 times no positive identification has been made to date, though the kindness and honesty of the gent has elicited much praise from the community. In an update Sarah commented on Facebook, 'Sadly we haven’t managed to find him. I hope he realised in my moment of elation and frenzy that the effort he went to was truly appreciated and made a difference to our day. Thank you whoever you are.'

So, is a video doorbell effective as a crime deterrent and evidence-gathering technology? Obviously it depends how clear the image is, what has transpired, whether the actual crime was clearly caught and recorded, and whether the police show any interest in the footage. Good luck with that one. And that's not even touching on whether you as a householder have worries about hackers or Big Brother privacy issues.

In the end it's up to you the householder to decide whether the potential security benefits outweigh any privacy concerns, and whether you are determined enough to maintain your video doorbell security and keep it active at all times. There's lots to think about. Maybe the moral of the story is: don't make a snap decision.