Insights

Beware the eyes in the bedroom in Airbnb

2/04/2019

The Atlantic reports on another of the perils of a less well-regulated hospitality industry.  As a rule, hotels will have CCTV in public realm and the entrance/exit to floors, but generally not along the corridors (where it would be possible to see guests coming and going from rooms) and never in the private areas such as rooms. Guests can now do their own security check, using mobile phone apps which can scan a room for hidden cameras.

The increasing use of tablets to control items in hotel rooms also needs the same level of care as any device connected to the "internet of things". A luxury hotel in China was very fortunate that it was white-hat hacker Jesus Molina who cracked the hotel's room control system first and not a criminal. 

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There have been super terrible examples of privacy violations by Airbnb hosts, e.g., people have found cameras hidden in alarm clocks in their bedrooms

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-happens-when-you-find-cameras-your-airbnb/585007/?utm_content=article
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