San Bernardino, CA Privacy & Surveillance: Security Camera Rules (2026)

010: to prohibit intrusion upon the privacy of citizens in the use of residential property without impairing the right of other citizens to protect their own property through private surveillance equipment. 020 defines PRIVATE SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT broadly as any device used by a private party that lets the user observe or record activities, or hear or intercept communications, of other persons. 030 requires that such equipment sit only on property the owner owns or has legal right to possess. 040(B) spells out five circumstances that automatically count as intrusion: capturing a visual image of any part of the other property not readily visible from the public right-of-way; hearing or intercepting communications not readily audible from outside without amplification; maintaining continual surveillance (defined as lasting more than 30 seconds) of any part of the other property whether or not visible from the right-of-way; positioning the equipment so the surveillance is primarily of the neighboring property rather than the user's own; or any other intrusion into a private place, conversation, or matter that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

The chapter cites Shulman v. Group W Productions as its statutory reference for that offensiveness standard. The code contains no city-run camera registry or Ring-style partnership program; a camera that stays trained on the user's own property and the public right-of-way in front of it is not restricted by this chapter.