Hidden camera

A hidden camera is a Caméra placed so as to be able to film individuals without their knowledge.

There can be several cameras directed on the subject to trap, filming at various distances and from various points of view, but in spite of that, one will speak by Métonymie about an hidden camera to the singular .

Technical Dipositif

Dissimulation of the camera

A camera known as “is hidden”:

  • either because it is invisible for the filmed individual (for example: too much remote, placed behind a Mirror without silvering or of the Pane S fume, etc),
  • either because it is discreetly integrated into another object.

In this last case, they can be dissimulated in:

  • of the fixed objects: objects of the everyday life, naturally present in an interior, and which are generally not moved (smoke detectors or of movement, alarm clock-morning, etc),
  • of the mobile objects: objects which one carries on oneself (glasses, jewel, Casquette, button, Sac, etc); such systems require a great miniaturization, and thus have a high cost, which makes them rather not very accessible to the general public.

More recently, of the cameras and the cameras were integrated in series in the mobile phones, which makes it possible to discreetly take images by making mine use its telephone.

For images filmed on the public highway, the most frequent technique is to film through the rear windows of a Camionnette, generally with the stop. The latter is then Surnom mée familiarly “Sous-marin” (what gives the Apocope “soum”).

A Webcam installed on a seemingly extinct Ordinateur can also constitute an hidden camera, insofar as the victim does not know that it functions. This system is in particular used in a memorable scene of the film American Pie , during which two high-school pupils observe a comrade changing behavior. There exist Logiciel S envisaged for this purpose, which start the capture as soon as a movement is detected.

Transmission of the images

An hidden camera is connected to a device making it possible to view the filmed images (screen of computer or Télévision), and to generally record them (Magnétoscope, Numériscope). The transmission can be possibly made Without wire, in which case the receiver will have to be located in the vicinity (in a ray of a few hundreds of Mètre S maximum). It can be also made on line by the means of the network Internet in order to be able to view the remote images.

Uses

The hidden cameras are used with various aims.

Vidéosurveillance

See also: Vidéosurveillance

In many countries, the installation of surveillance cameras in the public places and the private places opened with the public are governed by a legal framework obliging to inform the public of their presence: such cameras cannot thus be hidden.

However, there does not exist nothing like it for the places which are not opened with the public, and of the hidden cameras can thus be placed by their owners there. Thus the hidden cameras became popular at the private individuals to monitor their residence in their absence, primarily to prevent the intrusions and the Cambriolage S, and to check that the Baby sitter does not inflict ill treatments with their child.

In the television programs

TV-reality

Humorous program

See also: Hidden camera (humor)

The goal is to plunge people in incredible situations, and to observe their reactions vis-a-vis these situations. The participants of this type of programs are involuntary, and discover their participation only afterwards. In theory, the diffusion of the image filmeds requires their assent.

Candidates taking part of their full liking

The candidates who take part of their full liking to an emission of Télé reality know that they are filmed, and the cameras strictly speaking are thus not hidden. However, they are often dissimulated in the decoration, and the candidates do not know where and when they are filmed.

Method of investigation

The hidden cameras are also used as method of investigation in the field of the Journalisme, where they allow (generally by also dissimulating its statute of journalist):

  • is to return in places prohibited to the journalists, or tolerated with the journalists but without images not being turned;
  • is to make acknowledge with witnesses what they would not acknowledge by knowing that their remarks will be relayed, or to show acts which their authors would not make in the presence of a camera, in particular by fear of legal proceedings, reprisals, or of the negative glance their close relations and company in general. These protagonists are thus generally floutés, and their masked voice, so that nobody can recognize them.

In addition to the journalists, the activists also make use of it like manner of exposing facts suitable to destabilize a capacity.

The hidden cameras are also used, but in a way more marginal than the Photographie S, by the Paparazzi to show the celebrities in their private life.

Others

  • in the field of the Espionage and within the framework of police investigation ;

  • by researchers in Ethnographie and Sociology, in order to study the Behavior S without them not being skewed by the presence of a camera;
  • with an aim voyeurist, is for the personal pleasure of that which placed them, that is to say with an aim of diffusing them;
  • to make a joke with a friendly .

Legal aspects

Some is their use, the hidden cameras pose the problem of the respect of the Private life and the Droit to the image. Certain emissions of hidden cameras led thus to Procès or were prohibited of diffusion by people who had been trapped in situations that they considered embarrassing.

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