A company has begun removing sun valley residents’ webcams from its servers after an investigation found they were being used to collect private data about them, a local government agency said on Thursday.
Sun Valley, a town in the western Australian state of Victoria, said the process to remove the cameras had begun in July, but it has now been extended to cover all its residents, including those who have not paid the monthly fee for the service.
Sun valley police told the Sun Times it was unaware of any instances of unauthorized use of its cameras, and said its investigation was ongoing.
The company behind the software, which is known as CloudSun, is not registered with the Australian Privacy Commissioner.
The process to take down the software involves sending a request to CloudSun via the internet, and a computer that monitors the internet to see if it has the required permission.
Once it has confirmed that the request is legitimate, CloudSun sends a warning letter to the owner, with a copy of the letter being forwarded to the local police.
Police said it had no idea the computers were being monitored, but that CloudSun had a strong interest in protecting its privacy.
“They’ve got a good reason to keep their privacy,” Sun Valley Police Chief Superintendent John Kelly told the newspaper.
“I don’t think anyone would ever suspect they were monitoring their own devices.”
The software, developed by the company called SunSun, allows the operator of a webcam to monitor a user’s location, profile and other personal information.