CICERO, N.Y. (NCC News) – The holiday season is upon us and with that comes an increase in package theft. Burglars known to many as porch pirates prey on people who have packages delivered to their homes while they are away.
Last year nearly 26 million Americans reported being victims of porch piracy, and United States Postal Service is expecting to deliver more than 900 million packages this holiday season, according to a study.
To help protect their deliveries, homeowners have turned to security cameras. More specifically, security cameras inside of doorbells that send notifications directly to homeowners when they detect movement.
Derek Muller, a homeowner in Cicero, invested in a doorbell camera after his truck was burglarized last year, and said with the doorbell camera he feels ready for the crime ridden holiday season.
Muller does most of his holiday shopping online, and his doorbell camera gives him peace of mind when packages are on the way.
“So having the doorbell and other nest cameras throughout the house, you now when that package is arriving,” Muller said. “It’s almost addicting, you know the package is going to arrive that day.”
These cameras can even differentiate between animals and humans.
“It recognize sound and faces, so it knows what a face looks like right,” Muller said. “It can determine if it’s a person or a shadow.”
Many homeowners hope to deter any porch pirates with these devices. Richard Haumann, former Deputy Chief of The Syracuse Police Department, said that is exactly what this technology is capable of doing.
“The burglars and the thieves are all looking for those devices to see whether they want go up and pick up a package off the front porch of that house, so that is a deterrent in itself,” Haumann said.
