voyeurism, external<\/a>, takes place in an area where the person being filmed can expect privacy, or is done to cause harassment or alarm. <\/p>\nDomestic abuse charity Refuge is calling for tougher regulation of hidden surveillance devices and better police training to identify and investigate their use.<\/p>\n
“What is especially worrying is how accessible and affordable these devices are, allowing more perpetrators to weaponise them as a form of control,” said its policy and public affairs manager Bo Bottomley.<\/p>\n
It has seen a 78% rise in referrals for cases of technology-facilitated abuse in the last year.<\/p>\n
But the charity said nearly every survivor it supports has experienced some form of technology-facilitated abuse, and there has been a rise in reports of hidden cameras and microphones being used in homes.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson from Welsh Women’s Aid said “this form of covert surveillance can strip away a person’s sense of privacy and safety”.<\/p>\n
The charity warned that the harm extends far beyond the initial recording, with shared images and videos having a devastating impact on survivors’ lives and leaving many feeling unsafe, even in their own homes.<\/p>\n
“This form of abuse is particularly challenging to quantify. Many survivors will not be aware that this is happening to them,” they added. <\/p>\n
It called on tech companies to act quickly to remove shared spycam footage and provide information to police to help identify those responsible.<\/p>\n
The UK government has been asked for comment. <\/p>\n
Hunting the Spycammers will be available on the BBC’s YouTube channels and the BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 15 July<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the UK, filming someone is not automatically a crime. For example, in public spaces, people are often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-690054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}