Japan cracks down on tiny spy cameras amid school voyeurism concerns

Increasingly sophisticated technology has made these cameras, ostensibly for surveillance, smaller and harder to detect. Not only are they tiny enough to tuck away in small corners of bathrooms and changing rooms, they can also be disguised as buttons, clocks, pens and – in a recent case – clothes hangers.

In May last year, a 38-year-old man was arrested and later jailed after police found several spy cameras hidden in hangers in girls’ changing rooms at a high school in Kobe, western Japan, Kyodo news agency reported.

Police seized hangers with hidden cameras and two hard drives from the man’s home and found about 20,000 videos of female students in states of undress. Available for sale online, the motion-activated cameras were embedded in the innocuous-looking plastic hangers with just a tiny hole for the lens.

According to court documents, he had been filming secretly at schools in Kobe and various prefectures, including his hometown of Nara, since 2019.

A security goods retailer which sold similar cameras told Kyodo that the devices were intended to capture evidence of harassment or theft. “It’s unthinkable that they are being used for purposes other than crime prevention,” it said.