A man, while surfing his regular channel for adult content, found himself on the website. On screen, he saw the quality time he had spent with his girlfriend in a hotel in China’s Shenzhen three weeks ago.This incident sparked an investigation into China’s spy-cam porn industry, exposing how the genre, heavily fueled by the voyeuristic audience, has been operating a sophisticated network of hidden cameras, livestreams, and paid subscriptions that exploit hotel guests nationwide.A report by BBC World Service found evidence of a structured industry involving multiple actors, including installers, “camera owners”, agents, and online distributors. The content is promoted on Telegram, a channel banned in China, while higher-level operators reportedly manage camera installations and streaming infrastructure.
Industry operations exposed
One of the Telegram channels, managed by an agent named ‘AKA’ had up to 10,000 members and was promoting access to over 180 hotel-room spy-cams livestreaming intimate moments to paying consumers for fees of around 450 Yuan monthly.Subscribers were able to select from multiple feeds, which are triggered immediately after the hotel guests put their key cards in.The website also had the options to rewind footage, download clips from the archives and a chatroom.In a period of seven months, 54 cameras were identified (half active), potentially capturing thousands of unaware guests based on occupancy rates.
Supply chain mechanics
Operators install miniature hidden cameras, sometimes as small as a pencil eraser, inside hotel fixtures such as ventilation units, wiring them directly into the building’s power supply. The agents operate as intermediaries for “camera owners”, who are believed to oversee both the physical installation of devices and the running of the online platforms.Platform archives examined in the probe contained more than 6,000 edited clips dating back to 2017, and when one camera in a Zhengzhou hotel was discovered and removed, a replacement feed was activated within hours.
Failed crackdowns
Although regulations introduced in April 2025 require hotels to conduct routine inspections for hidden cameras, investigators were still able to identify thousands of newly uploaded videos on six different platforms over an 18‑month period. Law enforcement cases appear scattered across multiple provinces, but experts say the sustained demand for “raw”, non-consensual footage continues to drive the market, and tests show that many commercially available camera detectors fail to identify professionally concealed devices.
