Latest news with #snoopers
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The chilling ways your alarm clock, photo frames and smoke alarms are spying on you: Secret recordings are on the rise...and it's NOT against the law
Divorcees spying on exes, perverted landlords and staff wanting to know their next pay rise are among those making secret recordings using bugs hidden in everyday items, an expert has warned. Spy cameras and listening devices obscured in phone chargers, photo frames, alarm clocks, mirrors, plug sockets, pens and smoke alarms are available in huge numbers on mainstream sites including Amazon and eBay. One bug sweeping specialist told MailOnline that recording devices contained in plug sockets used for USB mobile phone chargers were particularly popular with snoopers because 'no one is going to suspect them'. He said that cameras buried in bedside alarm clocks were often used to gather evidence of affairs, while air fresheners were a common option for hiding microphones. Basic hidden cameras, recorders or car trackers can cost as little as £5. Campaigners have warned the bugs have the potential to 'cause serious breaches of privacy' and 'enable spying and much more serious abuse, from revenge porn to blackmail'. Secretly filming someone where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a changing room, is generally against the law, as is bugging someone else's property or taking images for the purposes of sexual gratification. But it is generally legal to install hidden bugs in your own home. And while sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent is already a crime, it is currently only illegal to take such an image if sexual gratification is the main intention. Ministers are currently planning to tighten the law following a 24 per cent rise in exposure and voyeurism to 15,948 in 2024. A paedophile was recently given a suspended prison term for stealing intimate videos of a mother and her young sons from a surveillance camera he persuaded her to install 'for security purposes'. The suspicious mother set up her own secret camera inside a teddy slipper, which filmed Peter Tomlinson, 56, sneaking into her home and downloading thousands of naked photographs of her and her young sons. In another shocking case, a groundskeeper snuck in and out of a woman's home for six months to secretly recover 40 hours of video filmed from a camera hidden inside a vase. Andrew Thomas, 45, became infatuated with the 65-year-old after he saw her walking her dog before she found his camera while rearranging her flowers. While many hidden cameras are installed for security purposes, descriptions on some items for sale online suggest other uses. One product sold on Amazon, a £56.99 'Hidden Spy Camera' contained within a USB charger tower, mentions 'business meeting' on a list of uses alongside the phrase 'beautiful moment' - which is accompanied by an illustration of a couple in bed. Meanwhile, a £79.00 'Spy Camera WiFi Hidden Camera Clock' that boasts of its 'stealthy design' and high-res camera that 'captures every detail' shows a picture of colleagues gathered around a meeting table alongside the caption 'office'. Stephen Anderson is director of Secured Area Services, a London-based company that carries out high-tech bug sweeps in homes and businesses. He told MailOnline: 'People are more involved in other people these days and everyone wants to know what everyone's doing - as you see with social media. So there's more desire to have bugs fitted. 'I've been doing this for 18 years and bugs are a lot more advanced now, even cheaper ones. You can buy sockets to charge your phone with a bug already inside them so no one is going to suspect it. That's a very popular device. 'For whatever reason someone wants to listen to someone else, and there will be be a bug for that. You can have a bug put in almost anything. I don't fit bugs but I've previously been asked if one could go inside a pushchair.' Bug sweeping expert Stephen Anderson, director Secured Area Services, said voice recorders hidden inside USB phone charging plugs are particularly popular among snoopers In April, victims and female violence minister Alex Davies-Jones said the government planned to make it a crime for equipment used to take voyeuristic images to be installed or adapted, even if no photo is taken. It comes amid an increase in reports from female swimmers of having been secretly recorded while in mixed-sex changing rooms. Currently, to prove voyeurism, prosecutors have to show that a camera was installed specifically for the purpose of sexual gratification and that a recording was made on it. A wave of recent cases shows the rising threat posed by hidden cameras. In March, a surveillance device was found inside an air freshener in a toilet of a Glasgow Screwfix, while the following month actors at the Leeds Grand Theatre uncovered one in a women's changing room. Meanwhile, in May, a Glasgow doctor was jailed for secretly filming friends and colleagues using the bathroom and shower due to concerns over the size of his penis. Anaesthetist Ju Young Um, 34, recorded 30 different people using bugs inside air fresheners and a smoke alarm before using the footage to compare himself to other men. Secured Area Services' Mr Anderson, an electrical design engineer who has previously worked for the Ministry of Defence, said his firm was called upon both by businesses and individuals. 'At the more serious side of commercial you have a company who wants to infiltrate a competitor and find out details about them,' he said. 'Then you have employees who may want to find out what the latest pay structure is or who's leaving or starting. 'You also have people who have left under a cloud who place a bug to try and find out what's going on in their absence. I've known that to go up to director level - with one listening into the other one. It can be offices, factories, any commercial area. 'You can buy a bug that's mounted inside a pen. So if you go into an office and have a meeting no one is going to be suspicious about you bringing a pen in with you. But it means you can record everything that's being said in a private meeting. 'In homes it's often family or divorce where someone wants to know what the other person is planning. Then you have larger families who tend to want to spy on each other - often they might have amalgamated businesses or some form of income they share and there's a dispute. Two ads on eBay for hidden listening devices - one inside a wall socket and the other in an extension lead. Both cost £99.99 Car trackers are available to buy on Amazon for as little as £4.99 'I've also known it where a divorce has happened and the child has been given to one side and the other person is trying to find out what their partner is doing to them. I have enquiries all the time about hidden cameras being hidden in bedrooms, including by landlords in rented properties.' Previously, most bugs worked by constantly transmitting signals that could be picked up with a detector, whereas now most are designed to stop transmitting when no one is actively listening. The increasing complexity of bugs meant more advanced equipment was now needed to detect them, Mr Anderson explained. 'We use a thermal camera that will detect any minute heat sources - so it could be a bug the size of a sugar cube behind an electrical socket that will last forever because it doesn't have a battery and relies on mains power. 'We also use something called a non-linear junction detector that detects the components within the bug. So that can detect bugs that don't even have a battery in them. 'Another very common bug is a GSM-based device that works like a mini mobile phone. So you ring it and it auto answers and you can listen in no matter how far away they are. A £48.99 'mini spy hidden camera smoke detector' on Amazon and a bug disguised as a portable power bank on eBay 'They have become very popular now, so we have equipment used by HM Prison Service that forces a GSM bug that doesn't want to transmit so we can then find it. 'If you put the term ''bug sweep'' into Google you'll find pages and pages of people doing it now. But most of them don't have the advanced equipment you need to pick up everything. If you have the proper equipment, everything can be found.' Neither eBay or Amazon are breaking the law by selling hidden recording devices. An eBay spokesperson said: 'eBay is committed to maintaining a safe and trusted marketplace for our global community of sellers and buyers. Listings found to violate eBay policies will be blocked or removed.'
The Sun
29-05-2025
- General
- The Sun
I received urgent WhatsApp alert meant to save me from horror text-stealing attack – check your own messages right now
WHATSAPP is warning people to upgrade their account security to keep out fraudsters and other snoopers. I received an alert from WhatsApp urging me to switch on a passkey. Passkeys are an alternative to passwords that's much safer and faster. These rely on your face, fingerprint or a simple passcode to login. As such, passkeys can't be guessed and they're impossible to re-use too. And passwords can be leaked online - whereas a passkey can't. People mistakenly re-use passwords as well, because they're easy to forget. Re-used passwords make it all too easy for hackers to break into multiple of your accounts, and simple log-ins are easy to guess. Passkeys have none of these problems, making them much more secure. A number of tech companies such as Google are pushing people to switch from passwords to passkeys. If your phone ends up in the wrong hands they could use it to raid your messages - and even text family to scam them out of money by pretending to be you. "We send you a registration code to confirm that you own the phone number you want to use on WhatsApp," Meta explains. WhatsApp reveals exacty how to block one of your contacts "After registering your phone number with WhatsApp, you can choose to set up a passkey for future verification." "You can use your fingerprint, face, or screen lock to verify it's you with a passkey. When you register, you can use the passkey instead of an SMS." How to setup passkeys on WhatsApp To start setting up a passkey on your WhatsApp account, do the following: Go to your WhatsApp Settings Tap Account Tap Passkeys Tap Create passkey (skip this step if you're on Android) Tap Continue
