A couple visiting Toronto were shocked to discover that they weren’t as alone as they thought while relaxing in the bedroom of their Airbnb rental. During the stay, the pair from Europe found a spy camera hidden in what appeared to be a standard alarm clock. The camera was pointed directly at the bed, according to the Daily Record.
Dougie Hamilton, one half of the couple who planned to stay in the Airbnb, said it took about 20 minutes for him to notice the clock and determine something about it was off. He said it looked “creepy” and couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with it. “I took the charger out of it and saw there was a lithium battery in the back. At this point, I slid the front facing off the clock and could see there actually was a camera,” he told the Daily Record.
Per Hamilton’s account of the incident, the camera could see the living room and bedroom, which would allow it to “see everything” including the bed. The couple is unsure if the camera was providing a live feed that the owner of the house or another party may have been watching or if it was recording footage of their stay.
Hamilton posted about the incident on his Facebook page, where he included photos of the clock and the camera discovered inside of it.
When contacted for comment on the incident, Airbnb told Digital Trends, “We take privacy issues extremely seriously and have a zero tolerance policy for this behavior. We have removed the host from the platform while we investigate and are providing the guest with our full support.”
On the company’s website, Airbnb stipulates that hosts with surveillance devices in or around their home list the presence of those devices, even if they are not hooked up. The company also states that hosts are required to disclose if any active recording is taking place. In this case, it appears that the host failed to inform guests that the camera was present. Airbnb also noted to us that cameras are never allowed in bathrooms or bedrooms.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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