Concerns of Illegal Spycam Videos, Now a Part of Daily Life: Cheongwadae Petition, "Ban the Sale of Subminiature Cameras"

[경향신문]

Kim Sang-min

“I like two things about wearing masks. I don’t have to wear any makeup and my face isn’t exposed to illegal spy cams when I go to the bathroom.”

Yi (28), an employee, is worried about spy cams all the time. She feels at risk even in her home, not to mention public bathrooms, the subway and hotels. Yi spoke with the reporter over the phone on June 20 and said, “I recently bought a used printer from a man. I sometimes look at the printer in my room and think, ‘What if there is a camera hidden inside?’” She continued and said, “I know that I’m being paranoid, but I can’t not be worried since there are women who have actually fallen victim.” She said, “All the women I know are this much sensitive to the issue. It’s a paranoia that society created.”

What women feel when they think of illegally captured videos of an unspecified number of the public in subways or public bathrooms is close to abandonment or helplessness. They hear about people they know falling victim to spycams aside from what they hear on the news. A, a teacher, recently heard that a male teacher in a nearby school was being investigated for installing a camera in the bathroom for female teachers. A said, “Before, when a camera was found inside a school, I thought it was the work of an outsider. But the fear has grown after finding out that a teacher, who was well respected by his colleagues, installed a spy cam.”

Recently, people have been sharing a post claiming, “If you see this picture frame in a motel room, you must get out immediately,” on social media. The picture of a vase attached to this post was a picture-frame camcorder sold by a company that specializes in subminiature cameras, and it is difficult to identify the camera with the naked eye. The company promoted the camera in question as a product that would not be detected with a spy-cam detector and claimed that it was not illegal. On June 17, the Gwanak Police Station in Seoul requested an arrest warrant for a man in his thirties who was suspected of shooting illegal pictures of women and distributing them. The suspect was a driving instructor who mainly taught female drivers and had installed a subminiature camera in the vehicle he used for his lessons.

The international human rights group, Human Rights Watch released the report, “My Life Is Not Your Porn: Digital Sex Crimes in South Korea” on June 16 and described that the perpetrators illegally capturing pictures and videos in South Korea used tiny cameras disguised as ordinary household items, such as clocks, calculators, clothing hooks, and coffee cups to shoot body parts of women in bathrooms, changing rooms, and hotels.

Seo Hye-jin, an attorney at The Lighthouse Law Office said, “The ultra-compact cameras used in the illegal shooting of videos are developing more creatively than a normal mind can think of.”

On June 18, a petition was posted on the Cheongwadae petition website asking the government to ban the sale of subminiature cameras. The person who started the petition wrote, “The number of criminals taking illegal videos with subminiature cameras everywhere like bathrooms, hotels, the subway and homes is surging,” and added, “They can easily purchase them with a few clicks, and they are openly sold because there are no adequate regulations.” This petition received the support of over 77,000 people by this afternoon, just two days since the petition was first posted.

Women argue that the current law is not enough to stop the non-consensual shooting and distribution of videos. The Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, Etc. of Sexual Crimes stipulates punishment of up to seven years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won for capturing the image of a person’s body against her will regardless of whether or not the image is distributed. But Yi said, “The Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes is a bill that punishes the act after the image has already been captured, so it is not enough to remove the fear in everyday life.”

Some people even referred to spy cams as guns. A said, “Subminiature cameras are used to shoot someone covertly without her knowing it (unlike the original purpose of the technology, such as endoscopies), so the government should regulate their purchase and possession like firearms.”

Lawyer Oh Seon-hui from the law firm Hyemyung said, “Just as it is with knives, it could be difficult to ban the sale of an object, just because it is used in a crime,” but added, “Since subminiature cameras are widely used in the illegal shooting of images and videos, we could consider enforcing some mandatory measures, such as obligating buyers and sellers to ‘report’ the sale.”