A Hong Kong man discovered the pornographic video he was watching depicted himself and his girlfriend having sex — captured by a hidden camera from their hotel in Shenzhen, China.
Eric and his girlfriend, Emily, were unknowingly filmed and edited into an hour-long clip uploaded to Telegram, a popular messaging and social media app, by websites claiming to operate more than 180 hotel-room spy cams that livestream guests’ intimate acts, according to a BBC World Service Investigation, who used pseudonyms for the couple. There have also been multiple reports of landlords and property owners using hidden cameras to spy on tenants in the United Kingdom and in Airbnbs across the United States.
Telegram is banned in China, as is so-called spy-cam porn, yet it is still used there for illicit activity. Over the course of the 18-month investigation, as many as 10,000 members viewed inappropriate, illegal livestreams on just one channel, according to the BBC. One porn trader on Telegram had a channel with over 6,000 videos in the archive dating back to 2017. The investigation found content captured by 54 different hidden cameras, with roughly half of those cameras operating at any given time.
The cameras’ feed would upload to live-streaming websites, allowing the user to watch the feed from the moment a guest kickstarted the electricity supply by inserting their hotel key card, the BBC reported. As of April 2025, the Chinese government required hotel owners to regularly check for hidden cameras — yet the problem persists.
Cameras are hidden in chargers, alarm sensors, ventilation units, lightbulbs and smoke detectors, and can be bought online for as little as $20, Conflict International reported. In the U.S., video voyeurism is illegal in all 50 states, and surreptitiously recording someone in a private space is a felony in 21 states, CNN reported.
Airbnb has reportedly known about the issue of hidden-cameras for at least a decade, according to a CNN investigation from 2024. Airbnb has generated tens of thousands of customer support claims related to surveillance devices in the same time frame, per the investigation.
Even though the company notified its shareholders of the problem in annual reports, it continued to allow video cameras in common areas for years if they were disclosed to guests, CNN reported. Airbnb banned the use of surveillance cameras in April 2024, but the outlet wrote that the company did not disclose how it would force hosts to comply with the ban. The outlet also reported Airbnb would not notify law enforcement over complaints of hidden cameras, and current guidelines reflect a lack of mandated police reporting.
The company posted in a 2024 news release that reported policy violations brought to their attention “would be investigated, and action we can take include listing or account removal.”
Telegram did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Airbnb did not immediately provide comment to the DCNF.
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