A recurring question from NSW strata committees is one that sits right at the intersection of governance and security operations: who, exactly, is allowed to view CCTV footage captured on common property, and can a committee lawfully restrict that access? A recent Q&A published in The NSW Strata Magazine (via LookUpStrata) tackles a real-world scenario that will be familiar to many buildings Mallen works with — and the answer has direct implications for how strata schemes should be configuring their video management systems, not just their bylaws.
The scenario
In the case raised, a strata complex had installed CCTV covering common property, but the committee had adopted a restrictive access process: any owner wanting to view footage after an incident (injury, property damage, a criminal offence, a police request, or a suspected breach of contractor terms or bylaws) had to submit a detailed written application. Only two committee members would then review the footage — and notably, the person who raised the original request was barred from viewing it themselves. The owners raising the question flagged an obvious governance risk: if the reviewing committee members are themselves involved in, or connected to, the incident under review, the process creates a conflict of interest with no independent check.
What the legal answer says
Strata legislation in NSW doesn’t explicitly regulate CCTV installations, but the response from strata law specialist Leanne Habib (Premium Strata) sets out the key compliance points integrators and building managers should already know:
- Installing CCTV on common property should be authorised by special resolution of the Owners Corporation, similar to any other common property works.
- The scheme must comply with the NSW Surveillance Devices Act 2007, and obtain council consent where required.
- Cameras should only capture common property — not private lots, balconies, or areas that would breach individual privacy expectations.
- A dedicated bylaw is recommended to govern camera placement, footage retention periods, who may view recordings, and signage requirements.
- Because the Owners Corporation typically funds and maintains the system, footage arguably forms part of the corporation’s books and records — meaning it may be accessible via a standard records inspection request (which attracts a fee), separate from any informal committee-controlled process.
- Individuals who have been recorded may have a legal right to view footage of themselves, though this depends on specific circumstances and legal advice should be sought.
Operational implications for buildings and their integrators
This isn’t just a legal footnote — it has direct consequences for how a video management system should be configured and administered in a strata context:
- Access control within the VMS matters as much as physical access control. Most modern platforms (Milestone, Nx Witness, exacqVision and similar) support granular user roles and audit logging. If a committee wants a defensible, conflict-of-interest-resistant review process, the system itself should support multiple named viewer roles, time-bound access grants, and an exportable audit trail showing who viewed what footage and when.
- Retention policy should be documented, not assumed. A bylaw that specifies retention periods only works if the underlying NVR/VMS retention settings are configured to match it — and reviewed when storage capacity or camera counts change.
- Signage and camera placement need periodic audit, particularly after common property works, landscaping changes, or the addition of new camera positions, to confirm no private lot areas have drifted into frame.
- Committees should treat footage requests as a governance process, not an ad hoc IT task. Building managers are often the ones fielding these requests in practice, and having a clear, board-approved procedure — ideally referencing who has technical access to export or delete footage — reduces both legal exposure and interpersonal friction.
Mallen’s take
We see this issue play out regularly across the strata and commercial buildings we support. The technology conversation (which camera, which VMS, how many days of retention) is usually well handled during installation. What’s frequently missing is the governance layer sitting on top of it: a documented bylaw or policy that assigns viewing rights, defines retention, and — critically — is actually reflected in the system’s user permission structure. A bylaw that says “only two committee members may view footage” is only as good as the VMS configuration that enforces it.
For strata committees and building managers looking to get ahead of this, it’s worth pairing any bylaw update with a technical review of the video system’s access controls, audit logging, and retention settings. This is exactly the kind of gap the Mallen site audit is designed to catch — confirming that what’s written in the bylaw actually matches what the hardware and software are configured to do. Where committees are also revisiting broader building access — swipe card logs, visitor registers, contractor access — it’s worth reviewing that alongside access control and visitor management settings at the same time, since the same conflict-of-interest and audit-trail principles apply.
Original source: https://www.lookupstrata.com.au/nsw-strata-cctv-access-rights-viewing-restrictions-committee/