TORONTO – A British couple have shared their terrible experience of finding a ‘spy camera’ in an Airbnb flat while on holiday in the centre of Toronto, Canada last week.
Dougie Hamilton, 34, of Glasgow, Scotland said what tipped him off was that the clock was ‘connected to a wire like a phone charger’ and fears it may have taken video of the couple.
The host of the property had ‘six other properties and hundreds of reviews,’ Glasgow said he was told by Airbnb, according to the Daily Record.
‘We have removed the host from the platform while we investigate and are providing the guest with our full support,’ Lindsey Scully, a spokesperson for Airbnb said told DailyMail.com. ‘We take privacy issues extremely seriously and have a zero tolerance policy for this behaviour.’
Toronto police had ensured that they are investigating the incident, but have not released the name or names of any suspects.
The couple also shared that they had found the device in a digital clock after being in the home with his girlfriend for just 20 minutes. We’d had a busy day around the city and finally were able to get to the Airbnb and relax,’ he said.
‘I just happened to be facing this clock and was staring at it for about 10 minutes. There was just something in my head that made me feel a bit uneasy.’
The visitor had recently seen a video on Facebook, he said, about ‘spy cameras,’ and it got his mind wondering whether this odd-looking clock might be one.
‘I thought, “Do I want to be the crazy guy that checks a digital clock for cameras now?”‘ In my head, I felt a bit weird even thinking about it and I kept telling myself not to be daft. But there was just something,’ he said.
The tourist told that “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.”
Hamilton said the camera faced the living room and bedroom and ‘could see everything’. This is something that should not be tolerated to buy the police at all. If a visitor is not having privacy then it is not at all sensible to visit such hotels and resorts.
Next time you visit out of the station make sure there are no hidden cameras in your room.
