With the evolution of eavesdropping devices such as pinhole cameras, the phenomenon of candid photography has indeed become unavoidable.
For many people, when they go to a hotel to stay in a hotel or try on clothes in a fitting room, they have to beware of whether they have sneak camera equipment; even the cameras installed in their homes have to worry about whether they have been cracked, resulting in real-time live broadcast of their private lives.
According to the Ministry of Public Security, since November 2021, the Cyber Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security has deployed and launched an operation to crack down on secret photography and peeping at the black industrial chain in accordance with the law. It has solved more than 160 criminal cases, arrested more than 860 criminal suspects, and seized illegally controlled networks. 30,000 cameras.
Compared with the fact that information such as phone numbers and addresses are collected and leaked by some apps, the form of peeping and secret photography, which invades privacy, is even more terrifying. Who knows how many peeping eyes are hidden behind the camera?
In order to prevent privacy leaks, many people have practiced various anti-candid photography skills, such as turning off the lights and turning on the mobile phone camera to scan the room.
Maintaining high vigilance is indeed an important way to resist peeping.
But since secret photography and peeping have long been industrialized to ensure privacy and security, we cannot rely solely on individuals to protect themselves, but we must intensify our efforts to cut off the black industry chain behind them.
A case disclosed by the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court in April 2021 showed that the defendant, Wu, controlled 180,000 cameras around the world through an app developed by himself, involving China, Japan, South Korea and other countries and regions.
The large-scale implementation of candid photography and peeping has increased the income of illegal profits, and also shows the hugeness of this industry chain.
Technically speaking, the widespread phenomenon of secret photography and voyeurism has a lot to do with the upgrade of photography equipment.
Some of the current camera equipment is small in size, easy to hide, and the man and machine are separated. Even if the camera is found, it is difficult to catch the person who installed the equipment. As for who is peeping behind, it is even more difficult to verify.
Another issue that cannot be ignored is that there is still room for further improvement at the legal level for acts of violating privacy such as secret photography and voyeurism.
According to the Public Security Administration Punishment Law, anyone who peeps, secretly takes pictures, eavesdrops on, or disseminates the privacy of others shall be detained for not more than 5 days or fined not more than 500 yuan; if the circumstances are more serious, they shall be detained for not less than 5 days but not more than 10 days, and may also be fined not more than 500 yuan. .
However, this is only limited to the handling of relatively minor acts of secret photography and voyeurism. For some larger-scale and more vile acts of secret photography and voyeurism, it is not easy to directly convict them at the judicial level.
Because according to the provisions of the Criminal Law, the clauses that may be involved in candid photography are usually the crime of "illegal use of special equipment for wiretapping and photographing", but there are certain thresholds for the identification of special equipment for wiretapping and photographing.
In reality, it is difficult for some commonly used shooting equipment to be identified as special equipment for eavesdropping and eavesdropping.
Because of this, many legal professionals have proposed to add "privacy crimes" to the criminal law to directly restrict behaviors such as secret photography and voyeurism, so as to effectively solve the problem of low illegal costs.
Considering that such behaviors are gradually developing towards a low threshold and a large scale, at the legislative level, it is indeed necessary to carry out research and explore the necessity of further improving relevant laws and regulations.
Of course, the improvement of relevant laws will take a certain amount of time. To ensure privacy and security, what is more urgent is to crack down on all aspects of the entire industrial chain without dead ends.
For example, from the source, the production and sales of related pinhole shooting equipment may be gradually transitioned to the real-name system.
For places such as hotels and fitting rooms, where there is a high incidence of sneak shots and voyeurism, the safety audit responsibilities of managers should be further clarified, and they should be forced to strengthen management and improve investigation efforts.
In response to the problem of some home cameras being cracked, the camera manufacturers and operating platforms also need to strengthen the main responsibility, and constantly improve the privacy protection mechanism to prevent account and other information from being leaked and stolen.
In addition, those who have "spying desires" must also be reminded that it is already suspected of breaking the law to spy on the private life of others.
Everyone should have basic legal awareness to resist the act of peeping.
This kind of conscious awareness is not only protecting others, but also protecting oneself - voyeurism can satisfy one's own desires, but who can guarantee that oneself will not become a "victim" under the candid camera?
Source of Xiong Zhi: China Youth Daily