LEE COUNTY, FLA — If you've got $40, then according to amazon reviews, you've got yourself a decent hidden cam.
Now, you might be using it to catch a badly behaved nanny or a crooked repairman, but local private investigator and retired police chief Walt Zalisko, says as this kind of tech gets smaller and cheaper, people are also using it to spy on you in private.
"Anybody can get their hands on these types of secretive cameras," he said, "You know they're just doing it for kicks to watch [it] themselves to see somebody in a house or whatever."
In most cases, that's called video voyeurism or recording someone when they expect some privacy.
"People have a reasonable expectation to privacy in their homes, in their car, in their place of work," Zalisko said.
An employee from the Lee County Sheriff's Office, Phillip Seeley, just lost his job. He's accused of secretly filming someone in North Fort Myers.
He's now charged with six counts of video voyeurism.
Zalisko says if you've ever stayed in a rented home or hotel or used a changing room or public bathroom, you also need to be checking for hidden cameras.
"They could be coffee makers, clocks in the walls, smoke alarms," he said.
And hidden cams don't stop there, Zalisko says he uses others for his work as a private investigator.
"[This one] looks like a key fob and I normally have some keys on it. This is a key fob but it's also a high-definition camera."
Now before you completely panic, he also says you can also fight this hidden tech, with your own tech.
And for 40-80 bucks, you can also buy a device, that will allow you to scan a room and check for hidden cams or recorders.
"What you'd be doing is looking through that red little pinhole there and you'll be scanning the room and you'll be looking for a reflection of a lens," he said.
Seeley's bond was set at $60,000 and he's expected back in court on March 15th.
