Is it legal to watch public cameras? Privacy and opencam

Every camera opencam lists is reachable on the open internet, and most are published deliberately by their operators — road agencies, weather services and webcam owners who want the view to be seen. Looking at an image that an operator publishes for the public is generally no different from looking at it on the operator’s own website.

What opencam does not do

• It does not record. Frames are shown live and never stored, so there is no archive to search.
• It does not identify anybody. There is no face, plate or person recognition of any kind.
• It does not track you. There is no account, and what you look at on the map is not logged against you.

Your responsibility

Laws on using camera images differ between countries. Watching a public feed is one thing; recording it, republishing it or using it to follow a person may be restricted where you live. Treat the people who appear in a frame the way you would want to be treated in someone else’s.

If you operate a camera

If a camera you operate appears on opencam and you do not want it to, the fastest fix is at the source: make the feed private, or remove it from the directory that lists it, and it will disappear from the map at the next catalogue rebuild. You can also contact the project to have it excluded directly — see about opencam.