Recently in China, the issue of hotel spying has evolved into a dark industry chain. Topics such as “Hotel Spying Cameras Connected to Covert Live Streaming App,” “Pay to Watch Thousands of Hotel Spying Videos,” and “TP-LINK Becomes Exclusive Tool for Hotel Spying” have become hot search items. TP-LINK responded, stating that their products have been unlawfully exploited.
On November 20th, the “New Beijing News” published an article titled “Hotel Spying Live Streams ‘Hot Selling,’ Pay to Watch Thousands of Videos.”
According to the report, on October 14th, a website named “Camera Bar” had a post by a user named “God’s Eye” stating: “There are rooms, all are fine pieces. Each ‘room’ corresponds to a camera inside a hotel room. Each new ‘room’ means another camera covertly installed and running inside a hotel room.
Upon getting in touch with “God’s Eye” via private message, the media journalist was able to purchase sets of 5 or 6 photos captured by 16 pinhole cameras showing private images of hotel guests. The sets were offered for sale at prices like “580 yuan for 5 rooms, 680 yuan for 6 rooms.” The photos revealed cameras discreetly placed in different types of hotel rooms overlooking entire beds from various angles.
After payment, “God’s Eye” instructed the journalist to download a mobile app called “TP-LINK IoT” and provided a virtual number to register an account and password. Upon logging into the app, the journalist discovered live feeds from 5 rooms under the “Devices” section, named A3, A4, A5, A6, and A7.
By randomly selecting a room, the journalist could not only view real-time footage but also access all videos captured by the camera in that room over the past 7 days. These videos were randomly segmented into clips ranging from 10 seconds to several minutes and stored in the cloud. One room’s cloud storage indicated an addition of 271 video segments on that day.
The developer of the “TP-LINK IoT” app, TP-LINK (Shenzhen Tenda Technology Co., Ltd.), stated that the app is meant for use with security monitoring products, allowing multiple mobile devices to collectively view bound surveillance screens.
Regarding optimization queries, a company representative iterated that while the product itself did not break any laws and was innocuous, it was misused by unlawful entities. The representative also addressed questions about potential technical enhancements.
According to a report by the “New Beijing News” on November 22nd, the company behind the “TP-LINK IoT” app has halted the paid sharing service. Users who had access to this feature will not be able to renew their subscription after the package expires.
Online sources reveal that the “TP-LINK IoT” app serves as a unified platform for managing TP-LINK smart IoT products.
This incident has sparked widespread attention on the internet.
The Director of Visual Technology at Asia Vision, a prominent figure on Weibo “Chen Jing from the Storm Institute,” expressed astonishment, stating, “It’s disheartening to see how developed the underground industry of hotel spying has become! Firm actions must be taken to rectify this situation.
“There were rumors earlier about struggling homestays installing cameras to spy on private content to make money, which seemed like an isolated issue that mainstream hotels would not partake in, considering major hotel chains wouldn’t have the incentive to engage in such activities.
“It’s shocking to see that the spying industry has expanded to this extent. ‘Installers’ have coerced legitimate hotels into becoming victims, significantly increasing the risk of consumers being spied on clandestinely, causing a massive blow to the reputation of the entire hotel industry. The spying industry has devised various network traffic monetization methods based on ‘channels’ and content, indicating a considerable underground traffic operation.”
A lawyer and influential figure on Weibo “Wu Shengwei wsw” remarked, “After reading several recent articles exposed by the ‘New Beijing News’ regarding hotel spying incidents, I am hesitant to stay in hotels… In a society where the black and grey industries prevail, it is apparent that numerous cameras could be recording in hotels and homestays across cities, with agents relentlessly installing new devices to make profits.”