Hidden Cameras

South Korea has a hidden-camera problem that’s become almost mundane. Men buy spy cameras for about $20 at electronics shops, install them in bathroom stalls, film women naked, sell the footage online or to strangers for kicks. It’s happened enough that women check toilets before sitting down, looking for infrared signatures of hidden lenses. Some just stop going out.

What’s strange is how it coexists with everything else. South Korea built a tech infrastructure that’s decades ahead of most places. But that same precision engineering gets repurposed. A camera small enough to hide in a light fixture is easy to build once you know how, and apparently that’s what happens. The legal system doesn’t take it seriously—fines are nothing, prison time is rare.

There are women pushing back. Activists patrol public restrooms with infrared flashlights, expose the cameras, demand real consequences. Soo-yuen Park is one of them. The BBC documented her story because it matters, because women there are finally fighting back.

I think about the contradiction sometimes. How a culture builds something so precise and permits something so violating. The camera isn’t the weapon—the man is. The real failure is a place that lets this happen, where women have to inspect a bathroom before they can use it. That’s what bothers me.