Find hidden surveillance cameras with AR

A research group uses Smartphone-sensors for augmented reality to detect secretly installed surveillance cameras.

Big Brother is watching you? New high-end smartphones such as Apple's iPhone 12 and 13 or the Galaxy S20+ from Samsung contain a laser-based ToF sensor for augmented reality applications. However, the technology can also be used to detect hidden cameras, as a research group has discovered.

ToF stands for Time of Flight and works via reflected light, which can be used to determine the distance of objects. The sensors are used in lidar systems, for example, with which vacuum robots can recognise their surroundings or can also be misused as a laser microphone thanks to a hack.

The research group from the National University of Singapore and Yonsei University in South Korea developed LAPD on this basis. The abbreviation stands for Laser-Assisted Photography Detection. The technology can be used to recognise camera lenses in a scanned area using reflected light.

The operation works conveniently via an app whose code is to be published as open source, one of the researchers involved told the Online magazine The Register with. Before the code is published, however, he still has to coordinate with his colleagues.

Detect hidden cameras in sensitive locations

"In our comprehensive experiments, LAPD achieves a hidden camera detection rate of 88.9 per cent, compared to the naked eye, which only achieves a hidden camera detection rate of 46.0 per cent", it says in the Research paper. At the same time, the technology achieved by far the lowest false positive rate in the test.

"Tiny hidden spy cameras installed in sensitive locations such as hotel rooms and toilets pose an increasing threat to privacy worldwide," the research paper states. "For example, in South Korea alone, over 6,800 such cases were reported in a single year."

It was only recently revealed that Ikea had secretly filmed employee toilets. The surveillance cameras were discovered by employees in the UK by chance years later. Airbnb has also repeatedly reported cases of guests being filmed with secretly installed surveillance cameras.

Source: Golem