New BBC documentary, Hunting the Spycammers, uncovers a dark online network in which footage filmed on hidden cameras in bedrooms, bathrooms, changing rooms and other private spaces is liked and shared.
Welsh presenter Jess Davies goes undercover to infiltrate this world and finds spycammers boasting about filming wives, girlfriends and strangers without their knowledge, including someone who plants spycams on a walking route to catch women stopping to wee in a bush where there are no public toilets.
Hunting the Spycammers will land on the BBC’s YouTube channels and BBC iPlayer on Wednesday 15 July. It is a co-commission by BBC Current Affairs and BBC Cymru Wales for BBC Three and is produced by Rock Paper Productions.
During her investigation, Jess discovers the range of spycam tech available – cameras disguised as everyday objects like pens, air fresheners and plugs. They’re cheap, easy to buy and almost impossible to spot. Jess speaks to one woman who went to the toilet while eating at a popular high-street restaurant chain and discovered a tiny camera hidden under the toilet seat that had the ability to livestream footage.
To get inside the world of spycammers, Jess teams up with investigative journalist Liam Connell. They discover a sprawling voyeur website – a hub from which users link to encrypted chat groups – and found evidence of illegal, non‑consensual footage being shared anonymously, including by users in the UK.
Posing as a new “spycammer” looking for advice, they infiltrate these groups from the inside. The evidence they uncover is deeply disturbing: perpetrators openly swapping stories of and tips on how to secretly film family members, partners, flatmates and strangers in private moments like sleeping, showering, changing – and boasting about the footage they captured.
For Jess, this investigation into spycams is personal: driven by her own experience of being secretly photographed naked while sleeping and the image shared on a private WhatsApp group. Speaking about what they discovered in their investigation, Jess said: “It’s a never-ending cycle of mass distribution of non-consensual content of women. It feels like these women are being hunted down and prayed upon.”
Jess confronts some of those who are behind the spycams to ask why they do it, if they know what they’re doing is illegal by capturing non-consensual footage, and whether they feel any sympathy for those who are being targeted.
Sian Harris, Commissioning Editor for BBC Cymru Wales, said: “Anyone who watches this film will relate to the horrific thought of being filmed by a secret camera in those private spaces: a bedroom, the shower, a changing room. Jess and Liam’s compelling investigation not only reveals this as a growing crime, but shines a light on the shady places where non-consensual videos are being traded and asks the questions we’d all want answers to about how and why is this happening.”
