Action News Jax Investigates: Home security cameras broadcast online

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Live, private security cameras close to home, broadcasting online for anyone to watch.

Action News Jax Investigates how the website insecam.org is putting personal security camera feeds at the fingertips of anyone with an internet connection.

The website says it only broadcasts from non-password-protected security cameras, but we found out that may not be the case.

The site shows live feeds at security cameras from Jakarta to Jacksonville and other cities around the world.

Cameras can provide views of businesses, churches, elevators, bedrooms and horse stables all available in English, Russian and Chinese text.

“Is this legal if it is broadcast without the owner’s consent?” Action News Jax Reporter Cole Heath asked Action News Jax law and safety expert Dale Carson.

“No it is not, absolutely not,” Carson said.

“Did you give consent?” Heath asked Nelson Alvarez, a man whose business security cameras are streamed on insecam.org.

“No, I would drop consent actually, and we already have a call to our IT company to take care of it,” Alvarez said.

We broke the news to Alvarez his air conditioning company’s private security cameras are broadcasting on insecam.org.

The website says Alvarez’s company is in Jacksonville; it’s actually about three hours away in Polk County.

“If it’s a private camera, it’s a violation of law,” Carson said.

The website claims the security cameras seen are not hacked and are not password-protected feed, but Alvarez said that’s not true.

“We have a firewall, we have many passwords to get into our network so for anyone to access our cameras, there are three levels of security,” Alvarez said.

A spokesperson for the website said all private or unethical cameras are removed and they do not hack cameras.

Insecam.org does offer an option on its website to have a camera feed removed.

However, the site warns that public networks and feeds can still be available online for people using surveillance camera search software.

Action News Jax asked an Insecam.org spokesperson what county the site operates out of. Our question was not answered.

Cox Media Group