Spycams are suddenly becoming living room furniture — sunk in flower pots, hidden on wall clocks, stuck on paintings — and the tool of everyday voyeurism.
A builder in Gurgaon had contacted RG Technologies Global Security Solutions in Paharganj for a monitoring device in the guest room of his new bungalow. "He wanted it hidden in a flower pot, which he wanted me to install near the dressing table," says the agency owner, R Gandhi.
Spy phones, too, are big sellers these days. Shashank Aggarwal of Target Vision Security Systems in Lajpat Nagar catered to a client who wanted to spy on his wife. "He gifted her a phone installed with a spychip. Every call she made on that phone gave a parallel ring to his phone, without her knowledge."
Baby observation kits are being sold fast over the counters. Worry over the child’s security is another ‘front’ for some working couples "who want something, but won’t say it in as many words," says Gandhi.
"If you want to put your maid under watch, place a spycam in your house, why in her personal quarters?"
The ambivalence of law in what constitutes private and the public has led to the upsurge of such activities says Ajay Digpaul, a lawyer with Delhi High Court. "We don’t identify privacy so there’s no protection against its infringement. There is no law as such to book spying and it is not deemed a criminal offence."