A homeowner who made a website showing CCTV of thieves in his house has been threatened with jail unless he takes it down - because he didn’t have the burglars' consent.



Robert Waters filmed criminals in his Dublin home and put the footage online to warn others, only to receive an email last week ordering him to remove the CCTV images.



The dad-of-three had captured masked thieves climbing over the wall of his house before breaking in through a kitchen window and stealing jewellery and his children’s piggy banks.



But since creating the site, Mr Waters has been threatened with a 100,000 Euro fine or a jail term - because of 'data protection'.



Cameras which he installed in his home in Killiney, south Dublin, showed them going from room to room in 'military precision' as they searched the house looking for valuables before fleeing within three or four minutes.



Mr Waters set up the site to warn other nearby homeowners, and encouraged other victims of crime to post their own images of criminals in the act to help catch them.









But within a couple of hours of ringing Joe Duffy on RTE Radio One's 'Liveline' show to publicise his website, Mr Waters got an email from the Data Protection Commissioner warning him that he is breaking the law by posting the images unless he has the prior consent of the criminals.



Mr Waters said: ‘I've had more sleepless nights over the Data Protection Commissioner than I have had over the burglary.’



































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