The quote is for eighteen cameras, a recorder in the services cupboard, and a monthly fee that didn’t come up in the first conversation. Someone on the committee has wanted cameras since the mailboxes were done over in March. The vote is at the next general meeting.
None of the questions that decide whether this goes well are in the quote.
Committees tend to run a camera upgrade like a procurement exercise. Get three quotes, pick the middle one, move on. It’s closer to a governance decision than a purchasing one, and the two failure modes are expensive. Get the approval pathway wrong and the scheme can be ordered to take the cameras down at its own cost, having already paid to put them up. Get the footage handling wrong and you’ve created a records and privacy obligation that nobody on the committee volunteered to administer.
Here’s what to ask before the vote. Some of it goes to the vendor. A fair bit of it goes to your own scheme first.
This is general information, not legal advice. Strata legislation differs by state and the facts of your scheme matter. Talk to a strata lawyer in your jurisdiction before you resolve on anything.
Settle The Approval Pathway Before You Compare Quotes
Cameras mounted on common property are a change to common property. In most schemes that isn’t maintenance and it isn’t cosmetic work, which means the ordinary committee resolution that covers repainting a fence won’t cover this.
In New South Wales, cameras on common property engage section 108 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015. That means a by-law passed by special resolution at a general meeting. The Act’s cosmetic-work and minor-renovation provisions don’t stretch to cameras, which is the assumption that trips schemes up. NCAT has been willing to order removal where the step was skipped, with the party responsible wearing the costs.
In Queensland, installing cameras is an improvement to common property under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, and the regulation module that applies to your scheme governs how the body corporate can authorise it. Disputes go to the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management, and owners have to make reasonable efforts to sort it out directly before they can lodge.
In Victoria, the Owners Corporations Act 2006 framework treats significant alterations to the use or appearance of common property differently from ordinary maintenance, and cameras arguably touch both. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s guidance on significant alterations is where to start. If your owners corporation plans to rely on a custom rule to govern the system, check that the rule has actually been registered. An unregistered rule may not be enforceable at VCAT, which rather defeats the point of writing one.
Whatever state you’re in, put three questions to the committee before the quotes come out.
What resolution type do we actually need, and at which meeting? Are we relying on a by-law or rule that was written before anyone had thought about cameras? And has an owner already put something up on common property without approval that we’re about to inherit?
That last one comes up more often than committees expect. An owner who has drilled a camera into a common property wall almost certainly needed approval to do it, and the scheme isn’t obliged to retrospectively bless it.
The Privacy Question Most Committees Get Backwards
There’s a widespread assumption that the Privacy Act 1988 governs strata camera systems. For a lot of Australian schemes, it doesn’t.
The Privacy Act applies to organisations turning over more than $3 million a year, plus some other categories. Most owners corporations sit below that and fall inside the small business exemption, so the Australian Privacy Principles don’t bind them. Committees sometimes hear this and conclude there are no rules at all. The opposite is nearer the mark. The exemption strips away the framework that would have told them what good practice looks like, while leaving every other obligation exactly where it was.
Two things apply no matter what the scheme turns over.
The first is state surveillance devices legislation. The Surveillance Devices Act 2007 in New South Wales, the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 in Victoria and the equivalents elsewhere all regulate the use of optical surveillance devices, and none of them has a turnover threshold. Queensland’s Criminal Code separately makes it an offence to record people in private places without consent.
The second is the duty not to interfere with your neighbours. Section 153 of the NSW Act and section 167 of the Queensland Act both impose a duty not to unreasonably interfere with another person’s use and enjoyment of their lot or the common property. A camera pointed at someone’s front door, window or balcony is the standard way to breach it.
Audio is a separate question and a stricter one. Make it a separate decision. The default should be off unless somebody can explain why the scheme needs it and you have advice saying it’s lawful.
One more thing worth knowing before you vote. In Queensland, adjudicators have found that CCTV footage operated by a body corporate can form part of the body corporate’s official records. A committee that assumes footage is theirs alone to control may discover that owners have access rights they hadn’t counted on. Ask your strata manager how records access works in your state before you promise residents that nobody will ever see the footage.
The Questions To Put To The Vendor
Most camera quotes answer questions about hardware. The questions that determine what your scheme is actually signing up for are about data, cost and control.
| Ask this | Why it matters to the scheme | A weak answer sounds like |
| Where is footage physically stored, and in which country? | Determines who can reach it, what happens in an outage, and whether residents’ images leave Australia. | “It’s in the cloud, it’s secure.” |
| Who can access footage, and is every access logged? | Without an access log you can’t answer a resident complaint or show the system wasn’t misused. | “Only the committee has the password.” |
| What happens to our footage if we end the contract? | Some platforms hold recordings in a proprietary format you can’t export. | “You can always ring support.” |
| Can this reuse the cameras we already have? | The single biggest variable in total cost for an older building. | “It’s really best to start fresh.” |
| What’s the licence or subscription cost per camera over five years? | Install price is visible. Licensing compounds, and it lands on future committees. | A quote showing hardware only. |
| Is facial recognition on by default, and can we switch it off permanently? | A capability the scheme never resolved to use is a liability, not a feature. | “It’s an option you might like later.” |
| What happens when the internet drops? | Decides whether you own a security system or an internet-dependent one. | “That doesn’t really happen.” |
| Who owns the footage, the scheme or the vendor? | Should be the scheme. Get it in writing. | Anything other than “you do.” |
| What signage and resident notification do you provide? | Notification is a legal and a trust requirement, and it’s usually the scheme’s job rather than the installer’s. | “We just install the cameras.” |
Get the answers in writing and attach them to the motion papers. A committee that can show it asked these questions is in a much better spot if a resident objects six months later.
Cloud, On-Site, Or Both
Storage architecture has the longest tail of any decision here, and it’s usually handed to committees as a technical footnote rather than a choice.
Fully cloud systems upload recordings continuously to the vendor’s servers. That’s convenient, and nobody can steal the recorder. You’re also paying for that storage indefinitely, and for most vendors the servers sit offshore. Even where the Privacy Act doesn’t strictly apply to your scheme, “our residents’ footage is held in another country by a company none of us has met” is a question you’ll eventually field at a general meeting.
On-site recording keeps footage in the building on a recorder the scheme controls. Lower ongoing cost, and the data stays put. Ask where the recorder will physically live, who holds the key to that cupboard, and what happens the day it fails.
Hybrid systems record on site and use the cloud only for search, alerts and remote viewing. Most newer platforms have moved this way. Coram is one example: recording stays on an appliance in the building, and only metadata and thumbnails go to the cloud layer that handles search and alerting, as part of a platform that also covers access control and visitor management. Worth noting even here, though, that a hybrid vendor’s cloud layer is often still hosted overseas. Coram’s runs in the United States. So “the footage stays on site” and “nothing leaves Australia” are two different claims, and it’s worth working out which one you’re being sold.
None of the three is automatically right for your building. What matters is that the committee picked one on purpose instead of inheriting whatever the installer happens to stock.
Working With What The Building Already Has
Older buildings usually have something already. A few analogue cameras, a recorder someone’s brother-in-law put in around 2011, a monitor in the manager’s office that nobody has looked at in years.
The instinct is to rip the lot out. Ask whether you have to. Some modern platforms work with existing cameras over standard protocols, which changes the shape of the project completely, because you’re upgrading the intelligence and keeping the cabling and the hardware. For a scheme with a stretched capital works fund, the gap between reusing eighteen cameras and replacing eighteen cameras is often the gap between the motion passing and the motion failing.
Ask every vendor the same question. What in our current setup can you use, and what has to go? Then ask them to show you on site rather than tell you on the phone.
And ask for a five-year cost rather than a quote. Hardware is a one-off. Licensing, storage and support are forever, and the committee that approves them is rarely the committee that pays them.
What To Put In The Motion
If the scheme is going ahead, resolve on more than the purchase. A motion worth passing covers:
– Scope. How many cameras, where, and what each one is for.
– The by-law or rule. Drafted with advice, passed at the right threshold.
– Retention. How long footage is kept, and that it’s deleted afterwards.
– Access. Who can view footage, on what grounds, and how each access gets recorded.
– Purpose limits. Security, expressly not monitoring residents or settling parking arguments.
– Notification. Signage at entry points, and written notice to every owner and occupier.
– Budget. Install cost and ongoing annual cost, stated separately.
– Review. A date when the committee revisits whether the system is doing what it was approved to do.
Cameras are easy to approve and hard to unwind. Half an hour on the motion is cheaper than a tribunal application.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need a by-law to install cameras on common property? In New South Wales, yes. Cameras on common property engage section 108 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, which requires a by-law passed by special resolution. Other states use different mechanisms: Queensland treats it as an improvement to common property under the BCCM Act, and Victoria’s significant-alteration provisions are the starting point. Confirm the pathway for your state and your scheme with a strata lawyer before you resolve.
Can a single lot owner install their own camera? Inside their own lot, generally yes, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else. On common property, generally no, not without the owners corporation’s approval, which usually means a by-law. Owners who have mounted cameras on common property walls without approval have been ordered to take them down and pay the costs.
Does the Privacy Act apply to our owners corporation? Often not. The Privacy Act 1988 applies to organisations turning over more than $3 million a year plus certain other categories, and many schemes fall under that threshold. The exemption is under active reform and is expected to narrow, so check the current position with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner rather than relying on it. State surveillance devices legislation applies either way.
How long should we keep footage? There’s no single legislated retention period for strata schemes, so the scheme has to pick one and write it down. Thirty days is a common starting point for general security purposes. The principle to apply is that footage is kept only as long as it’s needed for the purpose it was collected for, then deleted.
Can we record audio as well as video? Treat this as a separate decision with a higher bar. Recording private conversations is regulated more strictly than optical surveillance in every state. Unless the scheme has a specific need and advice saying it’s lawful, leave audio disabled.
Can we point a camera at a specific lot’s front door? That’s the fastest route to a dispute. Both the NSW and Queensland Acts impose a duty not to unreasonably interfere with another person’s use and enjoyment of their lot. Cameras should cover shared entries, car parks and common areas, framed to capture as little of individual lots as the purpose allows.
A resident has objected. What now? Deal with it before it escalates, because the escalation paths are real. NCAT in New South Wales, VCAT in Victoria, and in Queensland the Commissioner’s Office, which requires the parties to try self-resolution first. A scheme that can produce a by-law, a retention policy, an access log and evidence that it notified residents is in a very different position from one that can produce a paid invoice.
