Beware the baby monitor
HERRIMAN, Utah (ABC 4 News) – Someone could be eavesdropping on you using something as simple as a $99 baby monitor.
In just three hours wandering the streets of Herriman, we picked up 15 video and audio signals. We used just two brands of monitors.
At one house, we knocked on the door and invited Ranie to come see for herself. “Does that look familiar?” I asked pointing at a picture of a crib on a small black and white TV. “Yes,” Ranie answered, “That’s my crib.”
“It is very scary because I don’t even have the receiving monitor on right now, I just happened to forget to turn off the camera part and you have it on your monitor … so that makes me scared.”
We had picked up her signal more than a block away and had knocked on only one other door before finding the right house.
Ranie said she got the monitor as a baby gift. She likes it because it provides a measure of safety and peace of mind. “If you hear a sound, you don’t have to come in to see how he’s doing.”
Prior to our visit, she had no idea that when the crib camera was on neighbors or even strangers could be watching and listening. Still, when she thought about it, she remembered a family story that should have been a warning to her. “My sister, actually, heard her neighbors having an argument through a monitor.”
It’s not all that hard. In a block and a half of another street, we picked up three signals showing empty cribs.
Patrea and Shaun actually have cameras in two of their kids’ rooms. They were surprised to see the pictures of both rooms on our monitor. All we had to do was flip a switch on the back to change channels. “You would think they (the manufacturers) would try to make it a little more secure so maybe you have a certain frequency that maybe only yours would pick up.”
Another father, Brett, wondered, “How would you block that so that nobody’s watching your kid sleeping and doing whatever else?
Blocking the signal is really not practical, but parents do have options to secure their baby monitors:
– The best way is the most expensive. Use security cameras that can be routed through an encrypted, home wifi network. The cost of such systems start around $500.
– For about $300, parents can buy a digital baby monitor. Their signals are more secure than the cheaper analog models we used in our investigation.
– To be 100-percent secure, ditch the broadcast signal. Instead, hardwire a camera to a monitor with coaxial cable. It is a hassle, especially if you want to hide the cable, but there is no signal to be intercepted.
– The cheapest option is to keep the gear you have, just make sure you turn off your camera when you take your baby out of the crib. That would not stop a video voyeur, but would limit the exposure.
Speaking of the options, Ranie said, “I’m thinking about it!”
That is the point of this investigation. Most of the parents we talked to had no idea their cameras broadcast a signal well beyond their homes let alone that it could be easily picked up.
Now that they know their cameras are not secure, Ranie and others can make informed decisions that balance privacy and peace of mind.
By on 08/03/2011