Cameras, doorbells and smart homes in Queensland: who may film what

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A camera over the garage, a doorbell that films the footpath, a speaker that listens for its name: the equipment is cheap, it takes ten minutes to fit, and most of it records all day. The law that applies to it in Queensland is far less tidy. There is no single Act that says where a private camera may point or how long its footage may be kept. The answer is assembled from a 1971 statute about listening devices, one section of the Criminal Code, tenancy law, body corporate law and, for some organisations only, the Commonwealth Privacy Act.

This guide sets out which rule covers which situation: a house with a neighbour over the fence, a rented home where either the tenant or the lessor wants a camera, a property open for inspection, and a unit block with cameras on common property. It then looks at the devices that stay behind when a home is sold and at the footage that sits on a manufacturer's servers. It describes the general position and is not advice on any one dispute.

Invasion of Privacy Act 1971, section 43; Criminal Code section 227A as summarised by the REIQ; Residential Tenancies Authority guidance on fixtures.

Queensland has no general law for private cameras

Most Australian states and territories have a surveillance devices Act that deals with cameras, audio recorders, trackers and data surveillance together. Queensland does not. Its Invasion of Privacy Act 1971 regulates listening devices only. Nothing in the text of the Act, as published on the Queensland legislation website, deals with optical or video surveillance.

Video is therefore left to other laws. The Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management, in a column prepared with the Queensland Police Service, put the starting point plainly: filming a person or a home is not illegal in itself. It becomes unlawful when it involves trespass under the Summary Offences Act 2005, the filming of private acts or private parts of the body under section 227A of the Criminal Code, the recording of private conversations without permission, or conduct that amounts to stalking or domestic violence.

That leaves a wide space in which a camera is lawful but unwelcome. A lens that takes in a neighbour's driveway, the street or a shared path will usually not be a criminal matter. Whether it is a civil problem depends on where the camera is and who put it there, which is why tenancy law and body corporate law do so much of the practical work.

Sound is regulated more tightly than pictures

Section 43 of the Invasion of Privacy Act makes it an offence to use a listening device to overhear, record, monitor or listen to a private conversation. The maximum penalty is 40 penalty units or two years in prison. A listening device is defined broadly, as any instrument or equipment capable of being used to overhear or record a conversation as it happens. A doorbell, a camera or a baby monitor with a microphone fits that description.

There is one large exception. A person who is a party to the conversation may record it without telling the others. Queensland's Office of the Information Commissioner, in an information sheet last modified in August 2026, describes recording a conversation you are part of as generally lawful and recording one you are not part of as generally not. What a party may then do with the recording is restricted: the Act limits communicating or publishing it, with exceptions that include sharing it with another participant, using it in legal proceedings, or where that is reasonably necessary in the public interest or to protect the recorder's lawful interests.

The definition of a private conversation matters for fixed cameras. Words are not private under the Act if the speakers ought reasonably to expect that they may be overheard. A conversation shouted across a front yard is in a different position from one held quietly on a neighbour's back deck that a microphone happens to reach.

Filming where privacy is expected is a crime

Section 227A of the Criminal Code is the video offence. As the REIQ summarised it in a March 2024 article written by Carter Newell Lawyers, it is an offence to visually record people without their consent in circumstances where they have an expectation of privacy, with a maximum penalty of three years in prison. The section is aimed at private places and private acts. The Office of the Information Commissioner gives bedrooms, bathrooms and change rooms as the examples.

For a householder the practical meaning is about where a lens points. A camera on a home's own front door is far from the section. One angled into a neighbour's bathroom window or over a pool fence is a different matter. The Office of the Information Commissioner notes that the way cameras are positioned can lead to prosecution if it breaches the Code, and recommends setting them up to limit the effect on neighbours, particularly those with young children or a pool.

Inside a home the same section applies to the people who live or stay there. Guests, house-sitters, cleaners and tenants do not lose their expectation of privacy in a bathroom or bedroom because the camera belongs to the owner.

The reform Queensland has not yet made

The gap was identified years ago. In 2018 the Attorney-General asked the Queensland Law Reform Commission to review the state's civil surveillance laws. Its Report No. 77 was tabled in Parliament on 29 June 2020. According to a July 2020 summary by the law firm Clayton Utz, the principal recommendation was to repeal the Invasion of Privacy Act and replace it with a new law, drafted by the Commission as the Surveillance Devices Bill 2020.

That draft covered four kinds of device, namely listening, optical surveillance, tracking and data surveillance devices, and would have prohibited their use unless an exception applied. It also proposed a general civil obligation not to interfere with a person's surveillance privacy, a new Surveillance Devices Commissioner to receive complaints, and a path to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for those not resolved. It would have ended the rule that a participant may record a conversation without the others' consent.

The Department of Justice consulted on a first stage, limited to criminal prohibitions, in a paper issued on 18 April 2023 with submissions closing on 31 May 2023. Its consultation page, listed under past activities, says only that the government is considering the Commission's recommendations. No replacement Act has followed. The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said on 18 August 2026 that neither the previous nor the present government had acted on the report, and the Information Commissioner's community guidance modified that same month still describes the 1971 Act and section 227A as the rules that apply.

The Privacy Act rarely reaches a householder

Many people assume that federal privacy law governs any camera. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner says otherwise. The Privacy Act applies to Australian Government agencies, to organisations with an annual turnover above $3 million and to some other organisations. It does not cover a security camera operated by an individual acting in a private capacity, although state laws may still apply.

Where the Act does apply, the duties are specific. A covered organisation must tell people before recording that their image may be captured, keep the recordings secure, and destroy or de-identify them once they are no longer needed. A large property group, a building management company or a national agency network may be in that position. A lessor who owns one rental house, a small body corporate and a neighbour are usually not. How the Act treats real estate agencies is the subject of this magazine's earlier guide to privacy law and is not repeated here.

Neighbours: what official guidance says to do

Neither information commissioner offers a rule that a camera may not include a neighbour's land. Both offer a path. The federal office suggests talking to the neighbour first. If that fails, it points to a community justice or neighbourhood mediation centre, and for Queensland it names the Dispute Resolution Centres of the Department of Justice. It adds that a local council can say whether a camera breaches local laws, noting that some councils require planning permission for security cameras, and that anyone who feels unsafe should contact the police.

The Queensland office gives the same order: raise the concern with the property owner, try community mediation if that does not settle it, and report a suspected breach of the Criminal Code or the Invasion of Privacy Act to the Queensland Police Service.

Rentals: the tenant who wants a camera

In a rented home, the first question is whether the device is a fixture. The Residential Tenancies Authority describes fixtures as items generally attached permanently to the property and lists hooks, locks, antennas, satellite dishes and air conditioners as examples. Cameras and doorbells are not named. A camera screwed to a wall or wired into the doorbell circuit sits naturally within that description, while a battery unit resting on a shelf does not attach to anything. Devices held by adhesive strips fall in between, and the answer may depend on the case.

For anything that is a fixture, the process has been set since 1 May 2025, when the Authority's list of rental law changes records a revised framework. The tenant asks in writing on Form 23, one form for each request. The lessor or agent must consider the request reasonably and reply in writing within 28 days, stating whether it is approved and on what conditions. Reasonable conditions can include professional installation, whether the item is removed at the end of the tenancy, and who repairs any damage from removing it. Attaching a fixture without written approval may be a breach of the agreement.

If the home is in a body corporate scheme and the lessor approves, the lessor must pass the request to the body corporate within 28 days. The body corporate has no set deadline. Work may start only when both have agreed. A refusal, or silence after 28 days, means the tenant has no permission. The Authority's guidance is to try to resolve it directly, then use its free dispute resolution service, then apply to the tribunal, which may weigh the safety, security and accessibility benefits of the change and whether the property can be restored afterwards.

Approved cameras have already mattered in court. In a prosecution the Authority reported on 31 July 2025, timestamped footage from a tenant's camera, which the agent had approved, showed an agent entering a Gold Coast home before the time stated on the entry notice. The agency was fined $10,000 for unlawful entry and for interfering with the tenants' reasonable privacy, and ordered to pay costs of $4,713.10. The device itself does not change the entry rules, which are covered in the earlier guide to smart locks and digital access.

Rentals: the lessor's cameras

Tenancy law has no section on a lessor's cameras. What it has is the tenant's entitlement, in the Authority's words, to reasonable peace, comfort and privacy and to full use of the premises. Interfering with that privacy is an offence under section 183 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act, the provision used in the 2025 prosecution above.

How that applies to a camera the lessor installs has not been settled by a rule. A camera inside the tenant's home, in a bedroom or bathroom, also raises section 227A of the Criminal Code. External cameras, and cameras in shared areas of a house let room by room, are less clear. SBS reported in April 2024 on a Brisbane share house where the lessor had cameras installed. The tenants argued a breach of quiet enjoyment, and after several weeks of discussion with the property manager the indoor cameras were removed while two outdoor cameras stayed. The report described the area as a legal grey zone.

Open homes and inspections with cameras running

A seller's own cameras do not switch themselves off for an open home. The REIQ addressed this in its March 2024 article, and the two Queensland statutes divide the question neatly.

On video, the article advises that sellers should not have cameras operating in bathrooms or bedrooms without the prior consent of the people inspecting, because of section 227A. On sound, it warns that a conversation between two buyers about whether to make an offer is likely to be a private conversation, and that a seller who is not present is not a party to it. Recording it could be an offence under section 43, and passing on what was heard could be a further offence under section 44, which carries the same maximum penalty.

No Queensland provision says in terms that visitors must be told about a camera. The REIQ's point is that telling them is what makes monitoring defensible, because a conversation is not private if the speakers could reasonably expect to be recorded. It lists three ways to give notice: a written notice at the entrance, the agent telling buyers as they arrive, or a signed consent form. Its recommended practice is to disable audio during open homes unless consent has been obtained. The same reasoning applies to prospective tenants at a rental inspection.

Unit blocks: common property, by-laws and footage

The Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 does not mention cameras. The Commissioner's column records that the Act deals with them only through its nuisance provision, and that a body corporate installing cameras on common property must act reasonably. It suggests covering entrances, exits and vulnerable areas, and not positioning cameras to spy on residents or guests. An owner or occupier who thinks a placement unreasonable is expected to raise it with the body corporate first and may then apply to the Commissioner's Office.

For an individual owner, the line is the boundary of the lot. Grace Lawyers' March 2022 summary is that a camera on common property is an improvement needing body corporate approval, while one wholly within a lot needs none unless the by-laws say so. Section 167 of the Act still applies: an occupier must not cause a nuisance or unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of another lot or the common property.

By-laws can shift that line. In a January 2015 decision, the appeal tribunal of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal set aside an adjudicator's order that an occupier of a duplex remove a security camera from common property. The scheme's by-laws allowed an occupier to install a safety device against intruders without approval, and the adjudicator had not considered whether the camera was such a device. The tribunal noted the questions that should have been asked: whether the safety concern was genuine, and whether the camera was there for safety or to intimidate.

Who may watch the footage has become less certain. For a decade, adjudicators treated footage from a system owned by the body corporate as a body corporate record. The Commissioner's column cites a 2015 decision about a scheme called Xanadu, and the Unit Owners Association of Queensland listed five more to 2020. On that view, any owner could ask in writing, pay the prescribed fee and inspect the footage within seven days, with refusal allowed only for material believed to be defamatory or legally privileged.

Retention is also unregulated. A senior associate at Mathews Hunt Legal wrote in April 2026 that no legislation sets how long a body corporate must keep footage, but that deleting footage covered by a request already received would be unreasonable. The wider rules on body corporate records are set out in the guide to electronic voting and notices.

Devices left at a sale, and footage held overseas

A doorbell wired to the house, a smart lock or a hub fixed in a cupboard will often pass to the buyer as part of the property, a question the guide to fixtures and chattels deals with. The legal ownership of the hardware is the smaller issue. The device is usually tied to the seller's online account, and until that link is broken the seller may still be able to see the video feed or open the door.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre's advice on connected devices, updated on 27 March 2026, lists what to do before a device changes hands: erase personal data from the device and its app using the manufacturer's method, perform a factory reset, remove its pairings with phones and other devices, take out any memory cards, and delete an online account that is no longer needed. For a buyer, the mirror image is to ask which devices stay, and to set each one up afresh under a new account and a new passphrase before relying on it.

Most consumer cameras send their recordings to the manufacturer's cloud service, so a third party holds the pictures of a household's comings and goings. The householder may be outside the Privacy Act, but the company usually is not if it is large enough to be covered. A covered organisation that discloses personal information to an overseas recipient must, under Australian Privacy Principle 8, take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient does not breach the principles, and the commissioner's guidelines explain that it generally remains accountable for what the recipient does.

The devices themselves are newly regulated. The Cyber Security (Security Standards for Smart Devices) Rules 2025 set a mandatory standard from 4 March 2026 for internet-connectable products intended for household use. Passwords must be unique to each product or chosen by the user. The manufacturer must publish a contact point for reporting security issues and an end-dated period during which security updates will be provided, and products must be supplied with a statement of compliance. The Cyber Security Centre's advice before buying is to check that support period, and to read what data the device and its app collect and who it is shared with.

A camera in Queensland is judged less by the device than by where it points, whether it listens, and whose home it watches.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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