The idea of nanny cams, when put to proper use, isn’t bad. While sitters and nannies might not enjoy being on camera, as long as they know ahead of time that the cams are there, it shouldn’t be a huge issue. The recordings can protect them as much as the kids.
But there are definitely limits about what the cams should be aimed at and where they should be located. One nanny in New York City is filing a lawsuit over her experience with a nanny cam.
Vanessa Rivas had been working for the Lauren and Matthew Seltzer for about a year when she made her discovery.
One day in January 2018, Vanessa found a nanny cam hidden in the Seltzers’ bathroom, where she regularly undressed to shower and change after taking their kids to swimming lessons, according to the New York Post .
When she found the cam, Vanessa removed the memory card before letting Lauren Seltzer know what she’d found.
Vanessa says Lauren “immediately became defensive and hostile” toward her, and harassed her trying to get the memory card back, calling her 45 times and texting her 26 times.
Vanessa also says that she examined the footage on the memory card and found that it had been placed there 15 minutes before she arrived.
Which meant that it hadn’t been put there when Matthew was at home — just Lauren and the kids.
So, no surprise, Vanessa quit working for the Seltzers, but even quitting wasn’t easy.
She and her mother went to drop her keys off to finalize her exit, at which point Lauren “became irate” and called the police to try to get the memory card back.
Vanessa says she turned it over to police at a local precinct.
Even that didn’t completely end her contact with her former employers.
About a week later Vanessa says she was contacted by Lauren’s mother, who tried to get her to “sign a disclosure to avoid police contact,” which she refused to do.
That really seemed to set the Seltzers off, because Vanessa started losing business.
She says the Seltzers spread rumors about her being “irresponsible and crazy” to other nannies and parents.
Not only did Vanessa have her income cut off, but she had to seek therapy as well.
Now, in a lawsuit, she has put it all her allegations on record, saying that the Seltzers violated her “reasonable right to privacy.”
And she does seem to have some good legal footing in that regard, although the use of nanny cams is somewhat controversial.
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Nanny cams have absolutely caught babysitters and nannies up to no good.
Sadly, there are too many cases to count.
The cams have also caught all kinds of bad behavior, so having them in your home isn’t a bad idea for home security in general. But the Seltzers also wouldn’t be the first to put their nanny cam to bad use.
In May 2018, Daniel Switzen pleaded guilty to unlawful surveillance for putting a nanny cam in his bathroom.
He used it to spy on his nanny and her friends — she found it and turned it over to police.
He received five years probation and will have to register as a sex offender.
As New York lawyer Jeffery E. Goldman says on his website, parents are within their rights to install hidden cameras in their homes.
However, “No employer has the right to install nanny cams in the bathroom used by the nanny or in the nanny’s private room if it is a live-in employment situation,” he writes .
He also warns that “The use of secret nanny cams can cause a potential breach of trust between employers and nannies.”
h/t New York Post
