A RESIDENT surnamed Chen living in Nanshan District was recently surprised to see foreigners appear in his home surveillance footage, according to a TV news program.

The place shown on the footage seems to be a McDonald’s outlet. There was also a six-hour time difference between the place on screen and Shenzhen.

Chen bought two home surveillance cameras two years ago from an online store called Bodaweishi on Taobao.

The cameras had no problems until recently when Chen re-booted one of the cameras after letting it lie idle for a period of time during the pandemic.

After the issue, Chen followed the advice given by the producer. However, the problem was not solved and the product’s customer service center refused to communicate by telephone.

Only one of the two cameras had this problem, according to Chen.

It is reported that the camera can be connected to the Internet via a QR code displayed at the bottom base of the camera.

In principle, the camera can turn in different directions via a control system app on a mobile phone. However, when Chen was trying to rotate the camera, the camera did not respond to the operation command.

An expert with Guangdong Public Security and Protection Technology Association surnamed Lin said that the reason could be that the camera network shares access through the cloud.

Each camera has a unique ID. When it is not used for a long time, the ID might be redistributed and connected to other machines.

Customers are thus advised to choose big brands when choosing home surveillance products. (Wang Jingli)