Terms and responsible use

We have no access to what you record

This is not a policy choice we could quietly reverse — it is how the software is built. There is no MySentryHome server, no account, and no upload. Frames from your camera and audio from your microphone are analysed in your browser and discarded. When an alert goes out, it goes from your device to your Telegram bot, or to a local endpoint you configured.

We therefore cannot read your footage, cannot retrieve it if you lose it, cannot hand it to anyone who asks, and cannot delete it for you. The only copies that exist are yours: in your Telegram chat, and on disk if you run the optional local agent.

You are the one responsible

Whoever sets up and runs the camera is its operator, and in data protection terms is the one who decides why and how the recording happens. That is you, not us. The obligations that come with pointing a camera at a place — telling people it is there, having a lawful reason, keeping the footage secure, honouring requests about it — are yours.

The same goes for the Telegram side. The bot is yours, created under your Telegram account, and the chat it sends to is yours. Anyone who can read that chat sees your alerts, and can command the camera if you enable that. Telegram's own terms and privacy policy apply to everything that passes through it.

Acceptable use

MySentryHome is meant for watching your own property, with the knowledge of the people who live or work there. Do not use it to:

• record people who have not been told they are being recorded, where telling them is required — and it usually is;
• monitor a partner, a family member, an employee, a tenant or anyone else without their knowledge and agreement;
• cover places where being recorded is never acceptable: bathrooms, bedrooms that are not yours, changing rooms;
• point a camera into a neighbour's property or into a public space;
• break any law that applies where you and the camera are.

Surveillance law is local and it is stricter than most people expect. Recording audio, in particular, is regulated separately from video in many places, and consent rules differ. If you are unsure whether your setup is lawful, check before you switch it on — not after.

We cannot enforce any of this. The software runs entirely on your machine, with no account and no connection to us, so there is nothing for us to inspect, approve or shut down. That independence is the point of the design, and its consequence is that misuse is on the person who set it up.

No warranty

MySentryHome is provided as is, free of charge, with no warranty of any kind. It is a browser tab watching a webcam, not a monitored security service: it stops when the tab closes, when the machine sleeps, when the network drops, or when the browser decides to throttle a background page. Alerts can be late, or not arrive at all.

Do not rely on it as the only protection for anything you cannot afford to lose, and do not rely on it for anything where a missed alert has serious consequences. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from using it — including a detection that never fired.

The website

The website itself is separate from the camera, and it does measure ordinary page usage if you accept the cookie banner. What it never touches is anything from your camera, your microphone, your detections or your Telegram credentials. That is explained in full on the Privacy page.

Questions

This page is written in plain language on purpose, and it is not legal advice. If you need a formal assessment for your situation — a workplace, a rented property, a shared building — talk to someone qualified in your jurisdiction. Questions about the project itself can go through the support page.