Q: In January, my spouse was walking our dog on our wooded property in Carroll County, Md., when our neighbor’s dog came onto our property, killed our dog and injured my husband. We do not engage with these neighbors, though one of them seems to want a reaction from us and encourages the dog to bark at us when we are in view. Now, our landscaper came upon a camouflaged camera pointed directly into our totally secluded and private backyard, which we believe was put there to intimidate us or spy on us. Is this legal? What can we do?
A: Where the camera is placed, what it can capture, who placed it there and why it was installed matter.
“A security camera on a neighbor’s property that incidentally captures part of a neighboring yard is different from a deliberately concealed camera positioned to monitor a secluded backyard,” said Markus Rauschecker, executive director of the Center for Cyber, Health and Hazard Strategies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Maryland prohibits the use of cameras to conduct surveillance of others’ homes (including their yards). The offender must receive a “reasonable warning” or a request to stop, and continue with the surveillance, for the behavior to be considered a violation of the law. The infraction is a misdemeanor and can result in fines or time in prison.
If the camera was placed to harass, annoy, alarm or intimidate, you could pursue legal action to have it removed, but proving ill intent could be difficult. The law may be interpreted and applied differently across the state, depending on the jurisdiction, said David Hisle, a lawyer with Lewicky, O’Connor, Hunt & Meiser, LLC, in Fulton, Md.
“All judges’ tolerance for things is different,” Mr. Hisle said.
To establish that the camera is part of a campaign of harassment, keep a log of negative encounters with your neighbor. You could speak with a lawyer about your case, and receive guidance on pursuing criminal charges or filing for a peace order, a civil action that could ensure the neighbor stays away from you. Such orders need to be requested within 30 days from the instigating episode, and they generally last for six months. For both criminal and civil cases, your neighbors will be notified so they can present a defense. If you lose, you won’t benefit from a legal remedy, and the relationship is likely to get worse.
