Airbnb, the famous platform for short-term rentals, has announced that from April 30th it will be forbidden to install surveillance cameras in the accommodation offered for rent. Until now, Airbnb had allowed owners to use surveillance cameras in the common areas of homes, as long as the presence of the devices was disclosed in the rental ads, and only if the cameras were placed in visible places.
Airbnb explained that the new rules aim to guarantee greater privacy for people who use the platform. The company underlined that in most of the advertisements there are currently no references to the presence of security cameras, which means that the new regulation should only cover a small part of the accommodations.
Surveillance cameras were and will continue to be banned in bedrooms and bathrooms (they had been in the past some isolated cases of renters who had found hidden cameras in their homes, which had raised many concerns about user privacy).