BBC:
One night in 2023, Eric was scrolling on a social media channel he regularly browsed for porn. Seconds into a video, he froze.
He realised the couple he was watching – entering the room, setting down their bags, and later, having sex – was himself and his girlfriend. Three weeks earlier, they had spent the night in a hotel in Shenzhen, southern China, unaware that they were not alone.
Their most intimate moments had been captured by a camera hidden in their hotel room, and the footage made available to thousands of strangers who had logged in to the channel Eric himself used to access pornography.
Eric (not his real name) was no longer just a consumer of China’s spy-cam porn industry, but a victim.
Warning: This story contains some offensive language
So-called spy-cam porn has existed in China for at least a decade, despite the fact that producing and distributing porn is illegal in the country.
But in the past couple of years the issue has become a regular talking point on social media, with people – particularly women – swapping tips on how to spot cameras as small as a pencil eraser. Some have even resorted to pitching tents inside hotel rooms to avoid being filmed.
Last April, new government regulations attempted to stem this epidemic – requiring hotel owners to check regularly for hidden cameras.
But the threat of being secretly filmed in the privacy of a hotel room has not gone away. The BBC World Service has found thousands of recent spy-cam videos filmed in hotel rooms and sold as porn, on multiple sites.
