PrivacyLens Can Turn You into a Stick Figure

A new camera could prevent companies from collecting embarrassing and identifiable photos and videos from devices like smart home cameras and robotic vacuums. It’s called PrivacyLens and was made by University of Michigan engineers.

PrivacyLens uses both a standard video camera and a heat-sensing camera to spot people in images from their body temperature. The person’s likeness is then completely replaced by a generic stick figure, whose movements mirror those of the person it stands in for. The accurately animated stick figure allows a device relying on the camera to continue to function without revealing the identity of the person in view of the camera.

That extra anonymity could prevent private moments from leaking onto the internet, which is increasingly common in today’s world. more

Controversial Clothes Hook Spy Cameras for Sale on Amazon

Spy cameras disguised as clothes hooks are for sale on Amazon, despite the firm being sued over the gadgets. One clothes hook camera listing seen by the BBC features a picture of the device positioned in a bathroom.

A US judge recently ruled the retail giant must face a case brought by a woman who alleges she was filmed in the bathroom using a clothes hook camera purchased on Amazon.

A privacy expert has said the misuse of such devices may break British laws. Amazon declined to comment on the issue.

The US legal action against the company was brought by a foreign exchange student and aspiring actress... more

Helpful links...
Hidden Camera Detectors – Do They Work?
Spycam Detection Training for Businesses and Individuals (with Spanish, Korean and English closed captions)

Utah Lawyer Charged with Voyeurism...

...after employees find video of bathroom camera...

A lawyer in Vernal has been charged with stalking and voyeurism after

claims he installed a camera in a bathroom in his law office... Investigators in Uintah County first responded to a report from Judd’s employees who said they discovered printed pornography photos and a memory cards in a folder in office personnel files, according to court documents. Documents state an employee viewed the files on one of the SD cards and found a video of Judd placing a camera inside an employee bathroom ceiling vent.

There were also recordings of women employed by Judd using the bathroom. When the recordings were recovered, employees examined the vent in the video but found the camera had been removed, according to documents...

The same employee said that one duty she performed at work was to order items for Judd on an Amazon account they both had access to. “The account history showed that several small spy cameras had been ordered beginning February 2021, and continuing through that year,” documents state. more

Police Lt. Sentenced - Illegally Videotaping Women

MA - Belchertown Police Lt. Michael Beaupre, a former officer charged with illegally recording multiple women without their consent, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of probation on Tuesday in Eastern Hampshire District Court, according to Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early.

Beaupre, 38, pleaded guilty to eight counts of photographing an unsuspecting nude person, the district attorney’s office said, and was sentenced to two years of probation.

The officer also admitted in court to sufficient facts on 11 counts of unlawful wiretapping, the office said. A judge continued those counts for two years without a finding, and those probation sentences will run concurrently.

Beaupre used multiple concealed recording devices to secretly video record women as they undressed in his home between January 2017 through January 2022, the office stated. A woman who’d found some of the videos had reported them to law enforcement. more

Protect yourself and loved ones. 

Learn how to discover covert spy cameras.

Ring to pay $5.8M - Staff & Contractors - Snooping on Videos

Ring, the Amazon-owned maker of video surveillance devices, will pay $5.8 million over claims brought by the Federal Trade Commission that Ring employees and contractors had broad and unrestricted access to customers’ videos for years.

The settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday. The FTC confirmed the settlement a short time later. News of the settlement was first reported by Reuters.

The FTC said that Ring employees and contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data for their own purposes as a result of “dangerously over-broad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security.”

According to the FTC’s complaint, Ring gave “every employee — as well as hundreds of Ukraine-based third-party contractors — full access to every customer video, regardless of whether the employee or contractor actually needed that access to perform his or her job function.” The FTC also said that Ring staff and contractors “could also readily download any customer’s videos and then view, share, or disclose those videos at will.”

The FTC alleged on at least two occasions Ring employees improperly accessed the private Ring videos of women. In one of the cases, the FTC said the employee’s spying went on for months, undetected by Ring. more

Arizona Bill to Make Drone Spying a Crime Moves Forward

AZ - State lawmakers are moving to ensure people don’t get too nosy with their new drones.

In a party-line vote on Wednesday, members of the House Commerce Committee approved legislation that would make it a criminal offense to intentionally photograph, tape or otherwise observe someone else in a private place where that person has a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The only thing is that there hasn’t been a consensus as to when exactly someone crosses that line. more

The Missing "Key Fob" That Made a Lt. Col. Sweat

An Army officer who leads ROTC at California Polytechnic State University faces criminal charges after a preteen girl found a recording device reportedly belonging to the officer and allegedly containing secretly captured images from multiple retail store dressing rooms.

Police claim Lt. Col. Jacob Sweatland, 39, called the store in Pismo Beach, California, asking whether anyone had found what he called his “key fob.”

Police were investigating the matter after a preteen girl found the device — and local law enforcement reviewed the contents of the device, which included images from dressing rooms from multiple stores. more

Weird Science: Hacker Hacks Home Cam Then Reports it to Authorities

A former Davenport West High School science teacher has been found guilty of secretly recording people in various stages of undress in his Bettendorf home.

Clinton R. Vanfossen, 61, will be sentenced Jan. 5 on five counts of invasion of privacy, one count each of preventing apprehension and obstructing justice and electronic or mechanical eavesdropping...

District Court Judge Meghan Corbin filed a written ruling Monday. According to Corbin’s written ruling:

Bettendorf police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

According to the tip, a computer hacker in France hacked into the cameras of a home in Bettendorf and reported what he believed were people being unknowingly filmed in intimate moments.

Officers went to the location of the reported cameras, which were in Vanfossen’s Bettendorf home.

Officers searched the home and found two purported smoke detectors that appeared to contain a camera. The first camera was found in the second-floor hallway and the second camera was found inside a family member’s bedroom. more

Repair Worker Accused of Hiding Camera in DC Apartment

D.C. police and prosecutors say 41-year-old Eddy Giron installed a small camera in the bathroom of an apartment in Southwest D.C. near the Waterfront Metro station while he did remodeling work... 

Prosecutors said Giron moved the camera to different locations in the bathroom over the course of three days, including inside a vent and beneath the sink aimed at the toilet...

Detectives are investigating the possibility that there could be other victims. more

Recently in Spycam News

WA - School Employee charged with over 137 counts of voyeurism after it was found that he put a video camera in the female bathroom of a high school that he was working in, reportedly doing so since 2013. more

Singapore - A 25-year-old man was sentenced to three years and 24 weeks in jail and five strokes of the cane for video voyeurism. He was previously sentenced to three years in jail and three strokes of the cane in November 2018. more

FL - Twice this week there were reports that women were secretly recorded in spaces they thought they had privacy while undressing... "I've watched this issue get worse, and the legislation has responded by getting tougher," Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said. more

FL - Condo Association President, Charged with 4 Counts of Video Voyeurism... a cord led to a charger, which had a USB from which a USB cord connected to something in the plant. It was a tiny surveillance video camera. It had been placed there to spy on the bedroom’s occupants. more

• You don't have to be a victim. Learn how to spot spycams in places where you expect privacy.

The Flower Pot Bug Wins a Darwin Award

A 59-year-old man who was president of a condo association in the Matanzas Shores community faces four felonies for installing a video camera inside a condominium without the owner's permission, focused on the master bedroom, according to a press release from Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly.

Robert Orr turned himself in... Orr was president of Las Brisas Condo Association within the Matanzas Shores community.

FCSO was notified on August 30 by a woman who had a weekend stay at a condo, Staly said. As she was packing up to leave, she discovered a plugged-in USB camera hidden inside of an indoor flower pot located in the master bedroom she was sleeping in.

FCSO's Major Case Unit examined the camera and found that it contained video of two people in various stages of undress inside the condo, including the female who filed the report and a male who was also staying in the condo that weekend, according to Staly. It also contained videos of Orr testing the camera inside his own condo before it was placed in the flower pot (Darwin Award). more

Man Sentenced to Prison for Federal Wiretapping Charge

WV - A former Logan County resident was sentenced today to two years and three months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for prohibited interception of oral communications. Randall Dwight Holden II, 33, was also ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Holden admitted to secretly recording a video of a woman engaged in sexually explicit conduct in her Logan County home on November 25, 2017. The video was later uploaded to the internet without the victim’s knowledge. The video was one of several secretly recorded videos that Holden had created and posted online depicting the victim. 

United States Attorney Will Thompson made the announcement and commended the investigative work of the West Virginia State Police-Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). more

Caught on Camera: ‘Peeping Tom’ Seen Spying into Home

The New Orleans Police Department released footage of a man they suspect was caught on camera spying into a home window.

According to the report, the alleged ‘Peeping Tom’ was captured on video surveillance taking photographs/ and/or video of the inside of an occupied residence in the 3000 block of Robert Street with his cellular device.The video, which appears to be from a ‘Ring’ doorbell camera, is time-stamped at 11:19 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6.

The NOPD is seeking the public’s help in identifying the accused suspect. more

Last Month in Spycam News

TX - The Dallas Cowboys recently paid a $2.4 million settlement stemming from allegations of voyeurism against Rich Dalrymple, the team's former head of public relations, levied by several members of the organization's cheerleading squad. more

A cautionary tale... I was retained this past year as an expert witness in a spy camera case. The client was a victim of a spycam secreted in a chain restaurant restroom. I am pleased to tell you our side just won their lawsuit. The defendant settled for an undisclosed amount.

Businesses that have expectation-of-privacy areas need a Recording in the Workplace Policy and an inspection program in place.

Canada - Police are searching for a suspect after a woman reported being recorded while in a change room at a Metro Vancouver mall. more

Canada - Man jailed 30 months for hiding 'spy cameras' in bathroom to catch his roommate’s teen-aged daughter. more

UT - A man suspected of using his phone to film a female in a North Logan Walmart changing room was charged in 1st District Court on Friday. more

Canada - A former property manager in the Annapolis Valley has pleaded guilty to a charge of voyeurism involving a two-way mirror. more

S. Korea - Co-published by TIME and Field of Vision, the documentary Open Shutters follows Jieun Choi, a journalist in South Korea investigating the country’s plague of spycams. more

Canada - A 23-year-old man has been charged after allegedly hiding a cellphone in a women’s washroom at an Ajax hospital. more

CT - A local man was charged with voyeurism Saturday after a juvenile discovered a cellphone hidden in the bathroom of a residence. more

FL - On March 10th, OPD released a video of 28-year old Justin Wright setting up a camera at a Circle K gas station in the city. more

Singapore - After getting away with taking upskirt videos at a shopping mall because the victim did not report him to the police, a Singaporean man continued committing voyeuristic acts on colleagues and his in-laws. more

OH - Ex-funeral home owner pleads guilty... he installed a camera in the women’s bathroom at the former Slack and Wallace Funeral Home. more

UT - Ex-Sandy Fire captain faces 15 felony counts, accused of secretly filming girls undressing...he had been “hiding cameras in a home business space where teenage girls would undress,” more

TN - Families Notified Of 30 Cleveland Middle School Girls Captured On Covert Camera Placed By Teacher more

FL - Man placed phone on bottom of shopping cart, recorded under women’s dresses at grocery store. more

UK - Former Leeds soldier who hid spycam in girls' changing room jailed after admitting voyeurism charges. more

Singapore - Ex-NTU researcher jailed for taking upskirt photos of 400 women over 6 years. more

Northern Ireland - A disgraced guest house owner who narrowly avoided jail after he was caught filming men and boys in toilets is now challenging the sentence that kept him out of prison. more

Singapore - Ex-teacher jailed 10 weeks, fined for taking voyeuristic videos of colleagues, students and policeman more

Vietnam - A woman from Vietnam hacked off her husband’s penis after using a spy camera to see him indulging in inappropriate behavior with his niece. more

Reddit - Looks like my cat Beans found the pet cam I set up to spy on him from work. video

FL - A Sarasota acupuncturist ...used a spy camera that doubled as a functional pen to record the patient undressing. more

SC - A Virginia Beach man has been arrested for allegedly recording inappropriate video of a student on the Medical University of South Carolina campus. more

UK - Hospital chiefs say they have been working closely with police after a man was charged with filming a woman in its toilets, and then attempting to blackmail her on social media into paying £1,000. mor

WA - An Oregon man has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for recording people using the restroom at a Vancouver hospital and possessing child pornography. more

AR - Ashton Jaleel Thomas, 26, of Springdale, was arrested on suspicion of committing multiple acts of video voyeurism at the changing rooms in a Rogers Goodwill store. more

Singapore - A 40-year-old man used spy cameras to film videos of female friends and co-workers using the toilet in several locations, including his home, his friends' homes and his workplace. more 

• You don't have to be a victim. Learn how to spot spycams in places where you expect privacy.
  

SpyCam stories have become commonplace and the techniques used, repetitive. We continue to keep lose track of the subject for statistical purposes, but won't bore you with too many details. Only links to the stories will be supplied unless there is something useful to be learned.

Fake Italian Gynaecologist Snares 400 Women in Webcam Scam

Italian police Friday searched the house of suspected serial sexual predator believed to have posed as a gynaecologist to persuade dozens of women to undergo vaginal exams via weblink. more

Florida Surveillance Techs Charged With Video Voyeurism

Palm Beach, FL
Police have arrested video surveillance technician Jeremy Dale Lewis for video voyeurism after a nearly year-long investigation... 

A second suspect, Michael Reilly, is also facing a charge of video voyeurism. Police said Reilly, who also worked for Ask the Advisors, watched more than 600 live and archived videos over a five-day period in July 2020 of a woman undressing in her dressing room, and of a couple having sex...

This incident follows a high-profile case that saw an ADT technician receive a 52-month jail sentence for doing essentially the same thing. more

Spycam Detection Course | Now With Korean Closed Captions

The highly rated Spycam Detection video training course now has Korean closed captions, as well as English. Spanish is coming soon.

The demand for a Korean translation was fueled by their epidemic spy camera problem. They even have a special word for it, Molka. The problem is so bad the government created special inspection squads and a safety handbook for the public.

In other countries the problem is also epidemic.

This one-hour, self-paced course was originally created for businesses and other organizations to train their security and facilities employees. Having these people conduct periodic inspections reduces risk and legal exposure. A Certificate-of-Completion is awarded at the end.

The training is also beneficial for police, private investigators and executive protection professionals.

Personal protection is the most effective prevention. Knowing what to look for is important. The course is open to everyone. Any individual with a little knowledge can conduct their own inspections of:

• hotel rooms,
• public restroom,
• store changing rooms,
• locker rooms,
• vacation rentals,
• and their own domiciles.

Please forward this post to anyone it can help.
As more people become knowledgeable, fewer people will become victims.

BBC Spycam Documentary

In a new BBC documentary Stacey Dooley Investigates: Spycam Sex Criminals.

The crime no doubt happens all over the world, but is actually one that has been sweeping South Korea lately, as many have been found guilty of planting recording equipment in public places and then charging people to view the footage online...

The upcoming documentary will see our fave reporter look into the subject head on to give us an insight into the voyeuristic practice and how now, with such advanced technology, it's easier than ever to hide cameras in public places.

Some of the cameras being used are as small as the head of a needle and are so difficult to spot, but Stacey will be taken on patrol with an experienced spy cam hunters to uncover hiding places.

Stacey Dooley Investigates: Spycam Sex Criminals will be available on iPlayer from 6am on 1st April - something to add to your quarantined watch list. more

If You Live With a Housemate – Check for Spycams

IN - A 23-year-old man was arrested Thursday on a voyeurism charge.

On June 26, a woman saw a camera in her bathroom vent... then called Tippecanoe County sheriff's officers.

After investigating, the police concluded Di Fu, the woman's housemate, was responsible for the act.

Fu is charged with voyeurism using a camera or video device. He posted bond and was released from the Tippecanoe County Jail Thursday night.

The Purdue University directory lists Fu as a graduate research assistant at its biomedical engineering department. more

If you live with housemates you need to know how to check for spycams.

South Korean Women Protest Against Spy Cam Porn

Thousands of South Korean women gathered in Seoul on Saturday to demand stronger government action to fight the spread of intimate photos and footage taken by hidden cameras, which they say has women living in constant anxiety and distress.

Police said about 18,000 took part in the all-women protest, with demonstrators calling for stronger investigations and punishments against male offenders who photograph or film women without their knowledge and post the material online...

Since 2004, South Korea has required smartphones to make large shutter sounds when taking pictures and videos to prevent such crimes. However, phone cameras can be silenced through apps and there’s also an abundance of miniaturized cameras that can be hidden inside bags, shoes and toilets or small holes drilled into bathroom walls and doors...

The national government plans to spend 5 billion won ($4.5 million) to equip local governments with more camera detecting equipment, and strengthen inspections of bathrooms in public spaces and private buildings. There are also plans to widen inspections to elementary, middle and high schools. more