When visiting China, be careful with sex. You might be filmed by a hidden camera

One of the people who accidentally encountered the consequences of this industry was a 30-year-old man from Hong Kong, whom the publication calls Eric. His story is told by the BBC.

One evening in 2023, Eric, scrolling through a social media feed he usually used for watching pornography, suddenly realized he was seeing himself on the screen. The video showed a couple entering a hotel room, putting down their belongings, and later engaging in sex.

Eric recognized himself and his girlfriend: three weeks prior, they had spent a night in a hotel in Shenzhen, unaware that a hidden camera was in the room. Their intimate moments had been secretly recorded and posted for thousands of strangers to see

— including on the very same spy porn channel Eric himself had used before. Thus, the man went from being a consumer of this industry to its victim.

As the BBC notes, this phenomenon is much broader than just one personal story.

So-called spy-cam porn has existed in China for at least ten years, despite the production and distribution of pornography being forbidden in the country. However, in recent years, the problem has taken on a new scale and dimension.

Journalists note that this is particularly acutely perceived by women: online, they exchange tips on how to detect hidden cameras, which can now be tiny, about the diameter of a pencil. Some resort to extreme measures: they carry tents with them and set them up directly in hotel rooms to avoid being caught on camera.

In April this year, Chinese authorities introduced new rules obliging hotel owners to regularly check rooms for hidden cameras. However, the BBC investigation shows that these measures have not stopped the illegal industry.

How the spy-cam porn industry works

The spy pornography industry is structured as a commercial network, within which access to live broadcasts and video archives is sold through intermediaries.

As the BBC writes, one of the most prominent intermediaries identified during the investigation was an agent under the pseudonym 'AKA'. A BBC journalist, posing as a regular client, paid him for access to one of the sites offering online broadcasts. A monthly subscription cost 450 yuan (65 dollars).

After logging into the platform, the publication notes, users could choose between several video streams, each covering multiple hotel rooms simultaneously. The image appeared as soon as guests activated the room lights by inserting a key card. On the platform, one could both observe people live, rewind the broadcast, and download archival recordings.

Павялічыць

The BBC emphasizes that Telegram has become the main channel for promoting this content — a messenger forbidden in China, but widely used for illegal activities. One of the channels advertised by 'AKA' had about 10,000 participants during the investigation.

Libraries of edited clips are also available on Telegram for a fixed fee. The journalist counted over 6,000 videos in the archive, dating back to 2017.

As the BBC writes, during an 18-month investigation, the publication's journalists discovered six websites and applications through which secret filming was conducted in hotel rooms. All of them were actively promoted through Telegram, and their creators claimed to operate more than 180 hidden cameras.

Over seven months of observing content from one such website, journalists recorded footage from 54 different cameras, approximately half of which were operating simultaneously. Based on average hotel occupancy, the BBC estimates that thousands of guests could have been filmed during this period, most of whom are unaware of it.

BBC journalists managed to trace one of the cameras to a specific hotel in Zhengzhou, a city in central China. Researchers on site found a camera hidden in a ventilation duct and connected to the building's electrical network. However, popular hidden camera detectors, sold as a means of protection for guests, failed to detect the device.

When the camera was disconnected, information about it quickly spread on Telegram. However, as the BBC notes, within a few hours, the organizers announced the launch of a new camera in another hotel, demonstrating how quickly the network recovers.

During the investigation, the BBC identified about a dozen agents like AKA. From their correspondence with subscribers, it became clear that they do not work independently, but for people referred to as 'camera owners' — those who organize the installation of cameras and manage the streaming platforms.

The incomes of even individual agents significantly exceed the average annual income in China. According to BBC estimates, based on the number of channel participants and subscription fees, AKA alone earned at least 22,000 dollars since last April. For comparison: according to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics, the average annual income in the country last year was 6,200 dollars.

As the publication notes, strict rules exist in China for the sale and use of spy cameras, but journalists found that buying such a camera is quite simple at the largest electronics market in the Huaqiangbei district of Shenzhen.

Human rights activists from the RainLily organization note that deleting such content is almost impossible. Telegram ignores deletion requests, and group administrators have no motivation to remove profitable videos.

In response to official inquiries from the BBC, Telegram replied with a standard phrase stating that it prohibits pornographic content created without the consent of participants and moderates content. However, in practice, after the investigation, only the agents' accounts disappeared, while the streaming sites continued their operations.

As a result, despite formal prohibitions and new rules, the industry of surveillance of people in hotels continues to exist as a stable and profitable system, and its victims remain people who do not even know that their privacy has been exposed. As for Eric and his girlfriend, they now live with a constant feeling of fear and distrust. The young couple avoids hotels and even wear hats on the street, fearing recognition from the video that has remained online forever.

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