Hidden-camera shots and upskirts are a major problem in the country, but Japan’s #MeToo movement is not growing as fast as neighbouring South Korea – to the frustration of many
It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been nearly two decades since the world’s first camera phone was released, but the Kyocera VP-210 hit the market way back in 2000. It was a metallic-grey device with an antenna, a small screen and a tiny camera lens on the dialling side – a precursor to today’s selfie-ready smartphones.
Almost immediately after it went on sale, however, Kyocera was alerted to a grave and unexpected issue – some male customers were using the phone to take upskirts and other illicit photos of women in public. Just a year later, the phone had to be relaunched to include a camera-shutter sound that could not be disabled.
To this day, whether domestic or foreign, Sony or Apple, “any digital device that takes photographs in Japan has an automatic setting that makes a sound to deter the taking of covert photographs”, said Chelsea Schieder, an associate professor and gender studies expert at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
But click or no click, hidden cameras remain a major problem in Japan as the nation grapples with the issue of tosatsu, or voyeurs.
This month, a Tokyo man was arrested for secretly filming a woman on the train with his smartphone; in September, a male police officer in Osaka was caught using his phone to film upskirts in a subway station; over the summer, a man in Saitama prefecture was apprehended installing hidden cameras in women’s public toilets; and in March, among other incidents, a male junior-school teacher was arrested for attempting to shoot hidden camera videos of female students inside the school’s toilets.
Over the years, a variety of gadgets have been used for such activities. In 2016, cameras disguised as coat hooks were discovered by Japanese internet users who remarked they had seen similar hangers in public and private washrooms. More notably, in 2014, policemen in Kyoto launched a citywide campaign to combat tosatsu shoes – running shoes equipped with hidden cameras concealed in their mesh uppers.
