Hi-tech peeping Toms hit below belt
But police say the invasive home-made video footage is not against the law
Home-made videos taken up the skirts of unsuspecting Hong Kong schoolgirls are being distributed on peer-to-peer file-swapping networks on the internet. But the police say there is no evidence of any illegal activity.
The source of the inappropriate material is a website called HK Uniform Hunter, which features hundreds of illicit videos taken with hidden video cameras. Unlike images captured with camera phones, the videos available on HK Uniform Hunter are of a fairly high quality.
The videos were shot in Hong Kong and are all of young women or schoolgirls, filmed surreptitiously as they waited at bus stops and traffic lights, getting into trams or in changing rooms. The videos appear to be shot with a concealed video camera held under the skirts of targets.
A police spokesperson said: 'The police received a report about the website last year and after investigation, no evidence was found suggesting that there was any illegal activity.'
The voyeuristic videos are not unlike the recent spate of camera phone-related offences. However, it is difficult to charge the producers unless the victims complain or the pictures are clearly indecent.
'For it to be illegal, there must be proof of criminal intent and there must be a victim. So far, we have not found evidence of either,' the spokesperson said.
The authors of the site, which appears to have been in operation since 2001, could not be contacted.
A school whose students were filmed was shocked by the photographs and videos.
'I can't imagine that there are people who would stalk young girls and take such embarrassing videos and then profit from it,' said the principal.
At least four men have been arrested in Hong Kong for using mobile phones to take pictures up women's skirts but the offenders were prosecuted for loitering because of a lack of legislation to deal with the new breed of hi-tech peeping Toms. In most cases, the subjects were unaware they were being filmed. Moreover, those who felt something might be amiss might not have felt confident enough to confront the situation.
Mrs Cheng, a marketing executive who did not want to disclose her full name, said she had seen a man filming with a video camera at a flight of stairs leading down to a shopping mall in Causeway Bay.
'It was obvious he was interested only in getting the legs,' she said. When asked why she did not report the incident to the police or confront the man, she shrugged and said: 'What can we do?'
Matthew Lee Kwok-on, associate dean in the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong said: 'Unfortunately, internet porn has turned out to be one of the more successful e-commerce applications today.
'The widespread popularity in terms of cost of access to broadband in Hong Kong has had a major catalytic effect on encouraging the growth of such online businesses.'
Mr Lee said pornographic content, whether delivered over the internet or otherwise, was regulated by the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance.
He added that enforcement was a problem as the website was hosted outside Hong Kong's jurisdiction.
'From a legal point of view, it might not be very effective at the moment and legislation is antiquated. But the basic framework is there,' he said.
