Limits of the lens

If you’re like me, you’ve followed the sad tale of Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, an 84-year-old woman who was living her life and living it independently, right up until that was taken away from her this past February.

With the release last week of two ransom notes, the Guthries are back in the news again. All these months later, no one has a clue who did this. What authorities, and the Guthries, are left with is black-and-white video footage of a masked figure approaching Nancy Guthrie’s home. That’s it. It’s creepy.

With apologies to our audience, I do wonder sometimes, what purpose do doorbell cameras serve when it comes to safety? Are they just a reactive solution after the fact? When it’s already too late?

So, I asked the internet. And while I can’t speak to the veracity of the algorithm, I learned that they do serve as a psychological deterrent much of the time, putting a stop to break-ins, thefts and vandalism. That’s obviously what we want.

Speaking with security expert Jordan Frankel recently, we talked about the physical and psychological aspects of home safety. The host of the “Ask the Security Sensei” podcast recommends the “security onion,” layers of physical security, including property signs warning of alarm systems, lights, door locks and, yes, cameras. The point is indeed deterrence.

“No questions, surveillance cameras are helpful, but they are not physically going to stop a crime,” Frankel told me. “They're only going to identify somebody after it's happened, and that's only if they're not wearing a mask. So, you don't even get to use the cameras for identification. It just really helps you with a time frame of when entry was made.” 

As unsettling as the Guthrie case is, it also serves as a reminder that there is no single device, camera or lock that can guarantee our safety. The goal is not to create an impenetrable fortress, but to make ourselves less vulnerable through layers of protection that discourage bad actors from choosing us in the first place.