How to find a hidden spy camera in hotel rooms and rental homes

Nearly 60% of Americans said they were worried about hidden cameras in Airbnb homes in 2019.

And 11% of vacation home renters said they had discovered a hidden camera during a stay, according to a survey by the real estate investment company IPX1031.

Spy cameras are not a new problem. In South Korea, more than 30,000 cases of filming with hidden cameras were reported to the police between 2013 and 2018, according to the New York-based non-profit organization Human Rights Watch.

The number of hidden spy camera reports has proliferated because of the increasing accessibility and inexpensiveness of such cameras, combined with the public’s growing ability to detect them, said Kenneth Bombace, CEO of intelligence firm Global Threat Solutions.

Experts share simple methods to locate hidden spy cameras in hotel rooms and rental properties.

1. Conduct a physical search

2. Look at the Wi-Fi network

Wi-Fi scanning apps like Fing can identify devices on the network that are cameras, he said.

Those who hide cameras might use a separate Wi-Fi network to stream live video footage, but Wi-Fi scanning apps can also detect how many networks are in a residence, Bombace said.

But Kody Kinzie, a security researcher at data security and analytics firm Varonis, warned that a network scanner may not catch everything.

“The next thing you can do is look for devices that are broadcasting their own network name,” he said.

He recommended using apps like WiGLE to find devices that are “broadcasting some sort of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi network name,” Kinzie added.

3. Buy a spy camera detector

If all else fails, spy camera detectors can scan for radio frequencies connected to hidden cameras. These can be easily bought online from websites like Amazon or AliExpress.

But O’Rourke noted this method works only if the hidden camera is transmitting data.

“So many of them now have SD cards that just store data to be retrieved after someone leaves,” O’Rourke said. “And so these are much more difficult to detect.”

Bombace added that while it is possible to buy a radio frequency scanner, the cheaper ones are probably not that good.

“Like anything else, you get what you pay for — if it’s $30, it’s probably not that good,” Bombace said. “Better ones are going to cost hundreds or even over $1,000.”

What to do if you find a camera

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/27/how-to-find-a-hidden-spy-camera-in-hotel-rooms-and-rental-homes.html