Surfing through the internet has this amazing ability to make you realize how much of an innocent babe that you really are.
I started researching this topic because I had booked in to stay at an AirBnB when a stray thought entered my head… How do I know this AirBnB isn’t owned by some creep that wants to film me and my missus doing the horizontal monster mash? Or showering? Or making chocolate soft serve?
There are over 8 billion people on this planet and a lot of them are weird as fudge. What if one of those weirdos owned the place I had just booked out?
When beginning any of these blog posts I like to search the interwebs for stories of these types of things happening to other people so that I can learn a bit from their experiences. And when researching for this post I was expecting to find stories about people discovering hidden cameras in AirBnBs, hotels, change rooms or toilets as I had heard about these types of things happening in South Korea and figured the creeps of the Western world had probably followed suit by now.
Boy oh boy what an innocent little sunflower I was.
Because I did find a whole bunch of stories of people finding hidden cameras, but they found them in places that a pretty little idiot like me would never expect…
Quick note: the below stories are all reddit posts that came from people with random usernames (like hiddencamerascum) so for the purposes of storytelling and readability I made up names for characters to make them a bit easier to follow. The reddit posts are all linked in the headers if you would like more details.
The Parent
Katie is a young 21 year old woman that lives at her home with her mother, two younger brothers, and step father. Katie and her stepdad tend to butt heads a lot, and he occasionally says some questionable things to her, but he’s never acted inappropriately or harmed her. He’s been in her life since she was eight years old and Katie looked up to him as a father figure.
One weekend the family was heading away for a camping trip, leaving Katie behind as she had to work and look after the pets. While the family was away and Katie was home alone her step-dad decided to set up some outdoor security cameras to ensure that Katie and the house remained safe while the family was away. One of these cameras was set up outside of Katie’s window and faced into the yard.
Before leaving Katie’s father suggested that she should have her boyfriend over while the family was away so that she wasn’t alone in the house. This seemed odd to Katie. Previously her dad had made it clear that he didn’t want her boyfriend at the house because he didn’t want them “fucking in his home”. This, I guess, falls into that category of questionable things he’s said to her. But for whatever reason Katie didn’t think too much of her dads change of heart at the time and indeed invited her boyfriend over to stay
The weekend proceeded as normal, her family had fun on their camping trip, Katie went to work and had her boyfriend around afterwards. They hangout. Have fun. Change in and out of clothes. Have sex – everything that you would expect a young couple to do when they have the house to themselves.
The next day Katie’s boyfriend notices something a bit odd. The camera outside of Katie’s room obviously needs power to work so her stepdad had plugged it into a power socket inside of her bedroom. For whatever reason the boyfriend was checking out this setup when he noticed that there was something odd about the USB power supply that the security camera was plugged into. When he looked at the front of the charging block closely, lo and behold, a camera lens was staring right back at him. As you would expect this freaked the both of them out and upon a more extensive examination of the power supply they found that it contained a 2GB SD card and was indeed a hidden camera that had WiFi connectivity.
Her stepdad had been watching her and her boyfriend this whole weekend. Watching them hangout. Watching them get changed. Watching them have sex.
As you would expect Katie’s mind spun and she tried to find some way to rationalize her dads actions. Maybe he had accidentally grabbed the wrong charging block, maybe he was trying to protect her from intruders. But the harder Katie thought about this the more she realized that there was no valid reason why her dad would choose to place a hidden camera in her room without her knowing about it.
Feeling betrayed and devastated, she contacted the police, filed a report, and handed over the camera and SD card. Following advice from her aunt and cousin (who is a lawyer) she held back on telling her mom what had happened until she was back from the trip and Katie could talk to her alone and without the stepdad. Katie posted an update a couple of days later and stated that her stepdad had managed to get ahead of the situation (no doubt alerted by the footage of them finding the camera and then it subsequently going dead) and had somehow convinced her mum that he was in the right. Understandably Katie didn’t want to reveal too many details on why her mom decided to stick with him but she hopes that her mom will come around once the case goes through the court and the full details are revealed to her.
The Partner
Trish and her partner David are both in their mid thirties and have been dating for around 8 years. Unfortunately, like many couples, they had hit a bit of a rough patch over the last two years and despite Trish’s attempts to discuss their issues with David, he was unwilling to broach the subject or make any efforts towards remediating their issues. As a result the couple had not been intimate together in over a year.
One day Trish was going about her business when she gets a text informing her that a package is due to be delivered. The text is from a tech company that the couple had an account with, but given that Trish had not ordered anything recently she assumed the package must have been something her partner had ordered. Reading through the text she noticed the product name “Spy Camera USB Phone Charger 1080p HD”.
WTF?
Trish quickly checked the website to ensure this wasn’t some weird phone scam and, sure enough, listed in their recent orders was a spy camera that’s disguised as a phone charger (sound familiar?). So upon getting home Trish checks the mail, retrieves the package, and waits for David to return. When her boyfriend gets home she hands over the package to David who takes the package and puts it under his desk unopened. Trish is obviously feeling a bit distressed about the fact that her partner has purchased a spy camera and clearly has no intention of telling her about it, so she goes outside to call her best friend to discuss the situation. When she gets back inside she looks over at David’s desk and notices the package has now been opened but that there is no sign of the charger camera.
Later in the evening Trish goes to the bathroom and sits down on the toilet only to find herself staring directly at a shiny black phone charger that she knows to be a spy camera.
Double WTF!
This all makes sense to Trish now, she knows that her boyfriend likes jerking off to videos of women using the restroom and she now has no doubt that his intention was to film her on the toilet so that he could have some custom made videos to add to his wank bank.
As you would expect Trish took this opportunity to leave David, however she chose not to go to the police as she already suffers from anxiety and could not bear the stress that dealing with the cops and the courts would undoubtedly entail.
The In-law
Jodi is a 21 year old stay at home mum with a beautiful 5 month old baby. Given that she is already at home with her child she was generous enough to look after her brother’s one year old son at the same time so that both her brother and sister in-law could go back to working full time. Jodi and her partner have converted their spare bedroom into a playroom for the kids and subsequently that is where they spend most of their time playing and napping.
One day as she was tidying up the room she noticed that there was a weird circular object with a camera lens hidden behind the TV in the kids playroom. With a quick bit of googling Jodi confirmed that this was indeed a WiFi enabled camera that someone had set up to spy on her and her kids.
Understandably, Jodi flipped her shit.
First she called her fiance and asked if the camera was set up by him. He vehemently denied that he had anything to do with this and told her that she should contact the police and request a bug check.
Thinking through the situation, Jodi thought about all the people that had access to her house and the ability to place the spy cam, and the only other person that fit the bill was her sister-in-law, as she drops her son off every morning and picks him up in the afternoon whilst her brother and parents only drop around on the weekends. She suspected the camera was placed fairly recently so that ruled out everyone except the sister and her fiance.
But what really affirmed Jodi’s suspicions were some conveniently timed texts from her sister. One morning Jodi dressed her nephew in long sleeved footie pajamas as it gets cold in her apartment, only to get a text five minutes later saying “it’s going to warm up later so please don’t dress (nephew) too warmly, thanks!”.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.
Unfortunately Jodi never posted any updates on the situation so I guess this one will remain a mystery.
So who is most likely to spy on you?
The three stories above are just the tip of the iceberg of what I found online. There were many other stories that mentioned parents, partners, friends, roommates, siblings, and landlords. Whilst there were a couple of stories that I found about people finding cameras in AirBnBs and hotels, they were definitely the minority.
It appears that like many other crimes the person that is most likely to spy on you and take secret videos is someone that you already know and are likely intimately familiar with.
So with that being said…
How do you know if someone is secretly filming you with a hidden camera?
If you have ever seen a movie or TV show you are probably familiar with scenes where detectives and spies pull out a black wand-like thing and start waving it over objects and furniture to find any hidden cameras or listening devices. And maybe you are thinking after reading the previous stories that it might be nice to get one of these things to ensure that you aren’t being spied on at home or places that you visit?
Well surely Hollywood is being entirely truthful about the existence of these bug detectors and we can just pick one of them up on Amazon right?
Right?
Unfortunately not. Whilst there is equipment that is made to detect hidden spy devices, it doesn’t come in the form of a single convenient magic wand. In fact to do this as effectively as they do in the movies you would need multiple pieces of equipment that each cost thousands of dollars, specialized training on how to use that equipment, and several hours to conduct an investigation on each room that you suspect might contain a spy device.
Gosh darn it!
Well fortunately it’s not all bad news, because as we saw in the above stories most of these bad actors are just normal people that aren’t super tech savvy. They are simply purchasing ready made devices off the internet with a hope and a dream that you are even stupider than they are and won’t be able to tell what these disguised devices really are. So as long as you aren’t wanted by the feds (in which case you should probably hire a professional to help you out) it is actually surprisingly easy to spot any hidden spy cameras.
Step 1: Know what hidden cameras look like
The first step to finding hidden cameras is to know what they look like, and this can be achieved with a quick browse through amazon to see what is on offer.
Here are some of the most popular ones at the moment:
USB Chargers:
Smoke Detectors:
Pens:
Alarm clocks:
Car keys:
Clothes Hooks:
Picture frames:
Wall clocks:
Bluetooth speaker:
Screws:
Step 2: Know the three simple steps for detecting hidden cameras
Ok so now you know roughly what to look out for in terms of the objects that might be hiding a camera within them, but what if the creep is using something you haven’t seen before?
Well thankfully there are a few simple steps that you can follow to uncover any hidden cameras:
- In order for the camera to film you it has to see you, if it can see you then you should be able to see it. So the first thing you should do when searching for hidden cameras is simply look around and examine all the objects in your vicinity to see if any of them contain a camera lens.
- During you search here a few things to look out for that may indicate an object is hiding a camera:
- Duplicate items.
- Random holes in the wall / ceiling / furniture.
- Weird positioning of items (oddly facing the bed or shower for example).
- Mirrors – ensure that they are not two way mirrors by shining a light through them or using the finger method (on a normal mirror there will be a slight gap between your finger and its reflection, on a two way mirror there will be no gap).
- Examine every device plugged into an outlet (cameras need power)
- Objects that have a glossy glass like finish. As you can see in some of the above examples like the USB charger and the alarm clocks the camera is hidden behind a thin film of tinted plastic. By shining a light at any object with glossy tinted plastic you will be able to see if there is a camera lens hidden behind.
- If you are not sure about an object google the product name or serial code and see if you find anything dodgy.
- During you search here a few things to look out for that may indicate an object is hiding a camera:
- Turn off your lights and conduct another examination with a bright light. Camera lenses are glass and very reflective so look out for any unexpected reflections / flashes.
- Whilst doing this you can also conduct an examination with your phone camera and look for purple spots that indicate an infrared light. Infrared lights are used by hidden cameras for night vision and motion detection, you can test this out with a TV remote to see what infrared lights look like through your phone.
- Note: if you have an iPhone you will need to use the selfie camera as the rear camera has an Infrared filter.
- Whilst doing this you can also conduct an examination with your phone camera and look for purple spots that indicate an infrared light. Infrared lights are used by hidden cameras for night vision and motion detection, you can test this out with a TV remote to see what infrared lights look like through your phone.
- Use an app on your phone to scan the WiFi and see if there are any cameras on the network or unfamiliar devices, Fing is a popular app that is available on both iOS and Android.
- Many hidden cameras are WiFi enabled so that the creep can spy on you remotely in real time as we saw in the stories mentioned above.
And that’s it folks, the steps above are not very sophisticated but they are simple, effective, and can be done with just a phone and no training whatsoever. So wherever you may be you should now be able to spot whether or not there is a hidden camera spying on you.