If you’re the sort of holiday-home host who gets their entertainment kicks from tuning in to watch guests coming and going, life is about to get even sadder — because your very own private reality-TV show has little more than a month left to run. From April 30 indoor security cameras will be banned in the seven-million-plus Airbnb properties worldwide (except for common areas in hotels listed on the site). Penalties for hosts who violate the new policy include the removal of individual listings or entire accounts. It brings the company into line with its competitor Vrbo, which banned the use of surveillance devices inside properties in 2022.
It’s good news for guests, whether you’re an exhibitionist who prefers to monetise all closed-circuit appearances via OnlyFans, or you’re with the rest of us who simply enjoy a measure of privacy behind closed doors, our own or someone else’s. Last October my sister and I stayed in a lovely top-floor Airbnb in Lille — cool marble dining table, blue velvet sofa, long sunny balcony — but were rather taken aback by the Post-it Notes in the hallway, telling us it was under video surveillance and that for our privacy we should be dressed in that part of the apartment. I hadn’t planned any naked prancing, but my inner contrarian suddenly wanted to. Worse was that the camera was right next to a floor-to-ceiling collage of photos of the owner with friends and family. Nosiness is much less fun when you know you’re being watched.
Airbnb already required hosts to disclose security cameras in their listings (my sister and I missed that detail under “amenities” when we booked), but says it made the policy changes “in consultation with guests, Hosts and privacy experts”. Perhaps it was also aware of last year’s research from the home-security advice site SafeHome.org, which found that 42 per cent of potential holiday renters were less likely to book a property with security cameras — a figure you might consider surprisingly low.
It’s certainly not high enough to worry hosts, who’ve taken to online forums to fret over the security implications of the new rule. On Airbnb’s Community Centre, Reina173 in Bermuda says, “We have one indoor camera for the kitchen and living room. Without this I wouldn’t have caught the guests who clogged the sink, broke the microwave, damaged the floor, had additional guests, left the door ajar, smoked, took items or had a weapon! … Guests can just choose not to stay at a place with cameras.”
Which is true, but you don’t have to be up to anything nefarious to expect freedom from prying eyes. You might like to play Twister in your pants. Maybe you love nothing better than a good holiday nose-pick (flying can really make your nostrils crispy, can’t it?). Perhaps you want to read Liz Truss’s Ten Years to Save the West without buying a fake dustjacket.
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But take your embarrassing holiday read out to the pool at your peril because what Airbnb has not banned are outdoor cameras — provided they’re not trained on the interior or areas such as showers or saunas “where there’s a greater expectation of privacy” — or motion-triggered doorbell cameras. Many hosts swear by theirs (a Ring doorbell helped a Hove friend-of-a-friend rumble guests sneaking illicit extra overnighters in), but the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch is less convinced. “The ban on surveillance cameras inside the private spaces of Airbnbs is way overdue. Holidaymakers should be free to relax without worrying about being spied on. Airbnb must also make sure that external cameras don’t invade holidaymakers’ privacy — hosts have the right to protect their property but not to watch their guests come and go.”
Corporations such as Meta amass an alarming volume of intel about us; we don’t need our holiday hosts to be joining in too. So come on Airbnb, go the whole hog and ban outdoor cameras too. Let’s keep holidays about bons voyages, not bon voyeurage.
What are your feelings about security cameras in holiday lets? Share your thoughts in the comments below
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