Almost everyone recognises the image, the bored older lady in your street that spends her days looking out of the window, watching their neighbours’ every step (including yours!). A study commissioned as part of the National Home Security Month in the UK found that one in three people admit to spying on their neighbours and 10 percent even admits to have been caught doing so (Daily Mail, 2014). Especially since Covid-19 has taken over our lives, even though there might be less to see on the streets there are more eyes bored enough to be watching it.

Although your neighbour might be annoying, she cannot really do much more harm other than gossip about you. However, in the digital age even our good old spying neighbours are being replaced by devices. Last Tuesday, the Dutch national broadcaster NOS published an article stating that your neighbours might now be filming you. The reason for this? Smart doorbells.

Smart doorbells, ranging from 100 to 500 euros, are a smart device that allows you to see who is standing in front of your door without requiring your presence. The device has a built-in camera and most of them enable you to record whatever this camera sees, it is not even necessary for someone to ring the bell in order for the recording to start. Market research by Multiscope found that half a million Dutch households already own a smart doorbell. However, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) warns owners that there are some limitations to this use. Smart doorbell owners are not allowed to continuously record if their doorbell is aimed at neighbours property or the public street. (Schellevis, 2020) The DPA emphasize the threats that these doorbells pose to the privacy of neighbours, stating that these devices are really not meant to record your neighbours’ domestic fights and that you need a very good reason to be recording at all (e.g. recent break-ins).

I for one, am happy that the DPA is guarding our privacy in this matter, because although it seems nice to be able to answer the door without leaving the comfort of my bed, I would prefer for my neighbours not to be filming anything that I do in or around my house. What about you? Is your next-door neighbour invading your privacy? And how are the authorities where you live protecting you from this potential invasion?

Thanks for reading 🙂

References:

Daily Mail (2014) One in three of us spy on our neighbours: Half of people surveyed said they knew when next door leave and return from work. Daily Mail. Available at:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2794871/one-three-spy-neighbours-half-people-surveyed-said-knew-door-leave-return-work.html

Schellevis, J. (2020). Privacywaakhond waarschuwt: zet camera slimme deurbel niet zomaar aan. NOS. Available at: https://nos.nl/artikel/2351161-privacywaakhond-waarschuwt-zet-camera-slimme-deurbel-niet-zomaar-aan.html

(Price range smart doorbells via https://www.coolblue.nl/en/doorbells/smart-doorbells)

‘Movie Theatres Returned. Audiences Didn’t. Now What?’ is the title of a New York Times article posted mid-September, that carefully captures the distress the film industry is currently in. After a period of complete shut-down, movie theatres have been allowed to re-open if they take safety measures in regards to Covid-19. The audiences however, have not returned and studios are postponing their big releases. Sperling and Barnes (2020) argue that the longer the pandemic continues, the more streaming will become a true substitute for movie theatres.¹ This struggle however is not new. Long before Covid-19 forced us to put our lives on pause, the film industry was struggling to make ends meet. There are two main developments that played a part in this.

First, home theatre technologies such as surround sound systems, HD televisions are becoming increasingly sophisticated and affordable.² If you have a state of the art system at home, why would you still go to a movie theatre? Especially if a ticket to see a movie is 10 euros and it costs about the same to access a seemingly unlimited number of movies through a streaming service.

Which leads us to the second development: streaming. In the second quarter of 2020, Netflix had almost 200 million paying subscribers and a survey conducted in the US in May of 2020 found that 62 percent of respondents were currently subscribed to a paid streaming service.^3,4  Streaming platforms previously only offered ‘older’ movies, but the introduction of original content increased the power of streaming platforms even further. It could mean the disruption of the traditional format in which a movie always goes to theatres first and for a dedicated number of weeks before it can be shown anywhere else. Covid-19 might push studios towards a new format. Disney has already made this decision regarding the release of the live-action remake of ‘Mulan’, as they will mostly skip movie theatres and directly making the movie available on their own streaming platform Disney+ for an additional fee.⁵

Although the increased use of home theatre system and streaming platforms are no new development, Covid-19 is speeding up the changes they cause for the film industry.

References:

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/business/media/tenet-movie-theaters-coronavirus.html
2. https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/tv-and-culture/10-tv-technologies-making-movie-theaters-obsolete.htm
3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-of-netflix-streaming-subscribers-worldwide/
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/325162/svod-penetration-rate/
5. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-film-mulan-idUSKCN2502VO