דיווח: מצלמות נסתרות הותקנו בחדרים במספר בתי מלון בסין, הצילומים האינטימיים נמכרים באינטרנט

A new investigation by the BBC sheds light on an illegal industry in China where hidden cameras are planted in hotel rooms to secretly film people during intimate moments and then sell the footage online without consent. The BBC team identified 54 hidden cameras live-streaming from hotel rooms over a seven-month investigation. Joining us to discuss this is Chris Chappell, host of the show China Uncensored. Chris, good afternoon. And this just sounds crazy, but you've covered such issues. How big is the problem? Oh, it's pretty widespread. A couple of years ago, there was a Chinese blogger by the name of Shadows Never Lie, and he uncovered this problem that a lot of these hotels, guesthouse in China, they install hidden cameras and record people in some pretty intimate moments. And there is a big market for this on things like the dark web and whatnot. So it's pretty, pretty widespread, and it's a way of making a lot of money. Okay. Who is doing this? I mean, are the hotel owners involved? Well, there's some deniability that the hotel owners have because they can say, oh, it was some other guest who installed the cameras. But in the case I mentioned before, what the concern was, was that the hotel owners were working in conjunction with local police, and it was a way for local governments to raise money. Local governments in China have a lot of economic distress. They're not allowed to levy taxes. And so they often look for creative ways of making money, especially after real estate collapse in China. So I wouldn't say it's impossible that this is a money making scheme that kind of goes straight to the top. Okay. So how many figures are we talking about here? How much money is being made? I don't think anyone has an exact estimate because nobody knows how widespread the issue is. This isn't something that the Chinese Communist Party wants getting out there. I mean, they want tourism happening within China and people going. BBC documentary talks about a couple that discovered watching some of these channels that stream hidden cameras that it was the guy and his girlfriend. So it's really popular. It's wild. Imagine seeing yourself online. I see myself online, but not like that. I see you too online, but not in that light. What are Chinese authorities doing about this? As far as I can tell, some perfunctory kind of, you know, looking into it. Often, it's the case where they will try to blame individual people. It's definitely not anything that ties back to any local government or police. But in the case of the streamer, I talked about the blogger, Chow's Never Lie, there was a lot of pressure on him to be quiet about the situation that he was damaging the reputation of hotels and guest houses throughout the country. He was the real culprit. So, Chris, I was watching your coverage on this, on your channel, China Uncensored. It was a terrific coverage and I encourage our viewers to take a look at it. But you said the secret footage could actually even be used for blackmail material. Could you just expand a little bit on that? Sure. So, it's known that Chinese use honey traps, where they send a pretty young woman to an official, visiting official, businessman, and then films them in compromising situations and uses it as blackmail. Earlier today, I saw this video of these new Chinese robots that, you know, they're designed to look like women. And I'm sure in the future, they will be used for all kinds of things. And I'm sure they're just one giant spider. What if Terminator is actually those Chinese robots that look like women? Can you imagine that? Okay. I would watch that movie. Speaking of which, can you talk to us about China's larger surveillance state? What is the extent that people are being monitored? Oh, China is on another level. There are, oh, I forget the exact number, but there's like, I want to say like 10 or 11 security cameras per person. I could be wrong, but it's overwhelming the amount of surveillance that goes on in China. And that's actually one of the reasons they want to do, make a lot of breakthroughs in AI development, because there's just simply so much surveillance, not just cameras, but also monitoring people online and every interaction that happens online that they need these AI tools to be able to process that amount of data. And just finally, what is the CCP doing with this data? Is it for control? Is it for something else? What is the main purpose? Well, if you're targeting, like a US government official or businessman, it's manipulation of some kind or another. It could also be within China's Communist Party itself being able to bribe and blackmail your own businessmen or rivals. But I think a lot of it is they're just trying to collect so much data that they just view it as something that's in their interest. And I don't think until they really get the breakthrough with the AI, that they will even really be able to make use of it.