More and more reports from hidden cameras
When you rent a hotel room or something similar on vacation or on a business trip, you don’t want to feel like you’re being watched. And this feeling is anything but uncommon: As reported by CNBC, in 2019 almost 60 percent of Americans said they were concerned about hidden cameras in Airbnb apartments. And this concern does not seem to be unfounded either, as eleven percent of vacation rental tenants stated that they had actually discovered a hidden camera during their stay. This emerged from a survey by real estate company IPX1031.
This problem does not only exist in the United States. South Korea received more than 30,000 cases of hidden camera filming between 2013 and 2018, according to human rights organization Human Rights Watch. Kenneth Bombace, CEO of intelligence firm Global Threat Solutions, attributes the massive increase in cases to the increased availability and affordability of cameras and the growing ability of the population to detect them.
The magazine wmn, for example, reports on the case of a woman from the USA who recently had an unpleasant experience with a hidden camera. When asked on Twitter if she thought it would be better to book a hotel or a vacation rental, she replied under the post: “My last Airbnb had two cameras, one in the bedroom and one in the living room in front of the sofa bed, where my son slept and changed his clothes.”
Better to look twice
In fact, there are some measures one can take to identify any hidden cameras in hotel rooms and Airbnb apartments. For example, Bombace advises starting in the bathroom and bedroom first when looking for cameras. While Airbnb providers are permitted to install cameras in their properties, they must inform their guests about this. However, installing cameras in private rooms that affect privacy is prohibited. According to the expert, the vast majority of cameras are hidden in household items such as lamps, thermostats and radios and are connected to some source of electrical energy. Therefore, the first thing to do in the bedroom is to unplug the radio and put it in a drawer.
You can recognize the cameras by the light that the lens reflects, no matter how small it is. Therefore, by pointing a flashlight at a suspicious object, one can very well identify a camera hidden inside by the reflection. However, Michael O’Rourke, CEO of security firm Advanced Operational Concepts, warns against being too careless when using this method, according to CNBC. According to him, identifying cameras with the help of a flashlight can certainly work, but if you use the wrong procedure, it can easily happen that a camera is overlooked.
According to Reisreporter, there is another method of detecting unwanted cameras. In a video posted on TikTok, a user explains how to identify hidden infrared cameras: by turning off the light and scanning the room with the camera open on the smartphone. In fact, the cell phone camera is able to detect infrared rays. In the said video, the user spotted a camera in a small speaker box, showing how small and ingenious hiding places for cameras can be. You should therefore be particularly careful and not ignore any possible hiding place, no matter how small and inconspicuous it may be.
Tricks for finding cameras more easily
As Bombace goes on to explain, hidden cameras must always be connected to a local Wi-Fi network so that the transmitted images can be monitored remotely. It is therefore advisable to use WLAN scanning apps such as Fing to identify devices that are cameras on the network in question. Even if the hidden cameras use separate networks to transmit the video footage, the scanning apps are helpful because they are able to determine how many networks exist in a given building.
However, if this does not bring success, one still has the option of using a spy camera detector that scans radio frequencies connected to hidden cameras. These are freely available on online shopping markets. However, as Michael O’Rourke notes, this method only works if the hidden camera is actually in the process of transmitting data. Many of the hidden cameras would only save the video material on a hard drive instead of directly transmitting the recorded images live. Bombace also warns against paying too much attention to the price when buying such a detector: the cheaper models often left a lot to be desired in terms of quality.
Thomas Weschle / Editor finanzen.net
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