Unpack this: A woman cycles up to a London house in broad daylight, hops off her bike and stuffs a delivery package left on the doorstep into her backpack.

She quickly takes off, but does not appear overly concerned.

Caught on a home security camera and posted online where thousands of people have seen it — and under investigation by police — the apparent ripoff raises more than a few questions about the world in which we live.

There’s the question about leaving delivered packages outside. Not all parcel delivery services do.

Another question is whether thieves have become so brazen, they don’t care that it’s almost impossible to escape detection on camera in a 24-7 digital world.

That’s unless, of course, they don’t get the big picture.

“I don’t think we’re used to that idea — that cameras are everywhere,” said Paul Whitehead, a retired Western University sociology professor who specialized in studying criminal behaviour. “I don’t think most of us think of them as ubiquitous.”

Posted on YouTube and social news aggregator Reddit, the video of the seeming theft shows a woman wearing a white hoodie and sunglasses, nonchalantly scooping the package off a front porch.

The setting was possibly in the Adelaide Street and Fanshawe Park Road area.

Titled “Woman stealing packages in north London,” the clip was posted Sunday to Reddit.

The thread had 72 comments by early Monday.

By the same time, the video’s YouTube version had generated more than 22,000 views.

A police spokesperson confirmed the case is being investigated but didn’t release further information. Later Monday, police said they’re looking for information about the woman.

Petty thieves with a lot of nerve aren’t new — witness the seasonal thefts of Legion poppy collection boxes and wiring from electrical stations, for example.

But ripoffs and bad behaviour caught on camera aren’t new, either — which makes you think the thieves would be getting the message.

Two years ago, one London woman was so upset about thefts of flowers from her mother’s grave that she installed a camera on a nearby tree to monitor the headstone.

The camera recorded a woman wearing a hoodie and shorts ripping flowers in front of the gravestone out of the ground, putting them in a cardboard box, then running off.

It was the 16th time the grave had been stripped bare. The video was turned over to police, and posted on Facebook where almost instantly, it was shared more than 20,000 times.

“I don’t think we’ve made the clear jump” from thinking that though prying human eyes may not be there, electronic eyes are now ubiquitous, said Whitehead.

Dean Woronoski of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Local 566 in London, said Canada Post carriers don’t, as a rule, leave deliveries out in the open, leaving open the question whether the box was handled by a private courier service.

“Letter carriers don’t usually leave parcels at the door,” said Woronoski, Local 566’s first vice-president. “(But) some of the companies have messaging right on the package that the letter carriers must leave it at the door, not notify (the homeowner).”

Whitehead suggested it may not be a spur-of-the-moment crime.

“If this is what you do, and if this is not your first rodeo, then the person has learned you can do this with impunity,” he said.

“Shame used to be very much alive,” he said.

“(Now) shame comes when

you’re found out. That’s different.”

danbrown@postmedia.com

dcarruthers@postmedia.com