City considers residential surveillance camera bylaw

A dispute between two Waterdown neighbours and a peeping Tom incident in St. Catharines have prompted Hamilton councillors to consider approving a bylaw that would outlaw residential surveillance cameras that point into other people’s homes.

“This is something I’m growing more and more concerned about,” said Stoney Creek councillor Brad Clark during the Oct. 28 council meeting. “It’s creepy.”

In Waterdown, there have been a long-standing problem between two homeowners over a so-called “Berlin wall” that one neighbour has built. The owner has installed backyard cameras that point into the property of the adjacent neighbour who has been criticizing the wall.

And earlier this year a St. Catharines single mother with two teenage daughters installed nighttime backyard cameras that captured their neighbour’s son masturbating while looking into her daughters’ rooms. In September, the so-called peeping Tom’s parents installed their own night vision surveillance cameras and pointed them into the direction of the single mother’s home.