Security cameras in private homes have become common enough that their presence in a household where a nanny works is no longer unusual. Most families who have them installed them for reasons that predate any nanny employment: general home security, package monitoring, keeping an eye on a pet. The cameras were there before the nanny arrived, the family didn’t think of their existence as a policy decision requiring discussion, and the nanny walked in on day one into a household where she was being recorded without anyone having said so directly.
This is the default situation in a significant portion of nanny placements, and it creates a dynamic that both sides feel and neither usually addresses. The nanny knows the cameras are there. She can see them. She is aware, at some level of her professional consciousness, that she is being observed throughout her working day. The family believes they have a reasonable right to monitor their own home and haven’t thought carefully about what it’s like to work in a space where you are continuously watched. And neither party has had the conversation that would allow them to be honest about any of this.
What Nannies Actually Think About Being Recorded
Experienced nannies have a range of responses to household cameras, and the response depends heavily on how the situation is handled. A nanny who is told clearly before she accepts a position that the household has cameras, where they are, what they cover, and how the footage is used has been treated as a professional who deserves to know the conditions of her working environment. She can make an informed decision about whether those conditions work for her. Most experienced nannies, told honestly and upfront, accept cameras as a reasonable feature of private household employment and don’t find them particularly troubling.
The situation that experienced nannies find genuinely objectionable is discovering cameras that weren’t disclosed, particularly cameras in areas where a reasonable person would expect privacy, or discovering that footage is being reviewed in ways that feel like surveillance rather than security. A family that reviews hours of footage looking for something to criticize, or that raises concerns based on camera footage rather than direct conversation, is using the technology in a way that damages the working relationship even if the specific concern being raised is legitimate.
The nanny who feels surveilled rather than employed eventually leaves. Not usually with an explicit conversation about the cameras, because that conversation is uncomfortable, but the cumulative effect of working in an environment where she feels watched rather than trusted shapes how long she stays and how much of herself she brings to the position.
What a Clear Policy Actually Covers
The camera conversation that produces a good working dynamic isn’t complicated. Before the placement begins, the family tells the nanny which rooms have cameras, confirms that there are no cameras in spaces where the nanny has a reasonable expectation of privacy like a bathroom or a designated break area, explains what the cameras are for from the family’s perspective, and gives the nanny the opportunity to ask questions. That conversation takes ten minutes and it resets the dynamic from undisclosed surveillance to transparent workplace practice.
It also helps to be clear about how footage is actually used. Families who check in occasionally out of general curiosity are in a different situation from families who review footage systematically. Being honest about this with a nanny before she starts is both respectful and practically useful, because a nanny who understands how the cameras are actually used is less likely to develop the low-grade anxiety that comes from not knowing.
The Policy That Should Be in Writing
Camera disclosure and use belongs in the nanny employment agreement, not because it requires legal formality but because putting it in writing signals that the family takes it seriously as a professional matter. What’s covered, what isn’t, how footage is stored, who has access to it, and what the family’s expectations are around the cameras during the nanny’s working day. At Seaside Nannies, we recommend this as a standard component of the employment agreement precisely because the families who handle it explicitly and in advance have consistently better working relationships around it than the ones who leave it unaddressed.
