The path to privacy-respectful security is simple: Point cameras only at your own doors and valuables. Blind them from your neighbor's sanctuaries. Turn off the audio unless you have a specific threat. And for the love of privacy, do not upload every minor trespass to Facebook.

But as the adoption rate skyrockets, a fraught question is emerging from the legal and ethical shadows: Are we trading our privacy for safety?

The goal of a home security system is to feel safer inside your home. It is not to monitor the world outside of it. If you wouldn't stand on a ladder in your yard staring into your neighbor's kitchen for ten minutes, don't program a camera to do it for you.