Home rental services like Airbnb, HomeAway has totally transformed private rental businesses and the way people spend their vacations.

However, privacy concerns have started occupying visitors’ minds as new stories are emerging every now and then about secret cameras, hidden in rental properties.

A latest story came to light when a British couple found a hidden camera, in a digital clock, pointing towards the bed in Toronto, Canada.

Airbnb was quick to respond as the couple reached out to them, providing them a refund and an alternative accommodation.

Last fall a couple staying in Longboat Key, Florida, had to face the same ordeal when husband found the smoke detector a bit fishy with a black hole in their bedroom.

Upon checking they discovered a secret camera inside it, recording everything happening in the bedroom onto an SD card.

Last November 27, Jason Scott of the Internet Archive, took onto twitter to share his colleague’s experience with a motion detector on his Airbnb’s bedroom wall. The device had a concealed webcam, discovered upon inspection.

Since these secret cameras are easily available on Amazon and Ebay, the invasion of privacy can happen at any private rental home or hotel for that matter.

Surely you are not a professional at finding secret cameras but for a casual vacationer it’s important to know different types of secret cameras and different techniques to find them.

Where to look for hidden cameras

One should be vigilant when getting into a rental room, as bad people can be found anywhere. Look around the bedroom and bathrooms for tiny holes, where the camera lens might be.

Check common items like Clocks, Smoke detectors, Stuffed toys, House plants, Mirrors, Picture frames, Motion sensors or just any objects facing the bed, which could give the best field view for camera lenses.

Coat racks, fake screws, basically anything could be used to hide cameras, and any creep is just a click away from getting it.

Since these people aren’t going to spend thousands of dollars on surveillance cams, just to creep on strangers, a concealed device worth only a few hundred dollars has a good chance of being spotted during a search.

How to protect your privacy

You don’t have to be a tech savvy to find hidden cameras if you failed to find any with your naked eye. Just a few easy tricks will get you over the line in finding hidden cams, if there are any.

Turn off the lights of the room and shine a torch (your cell phone’s flashlight will do the job) into every tiny object and holes which you suspect could be holding a secret camera. Any camera lens will reflect back the light.

There are two types of hidden cameras, one that record onto a local storage, such as SD card, and second that is connected via Wi-Fi to the internet.

If you are connected to your host’s Wi-Fi network, you can use a free network scanner for any webcams like @fingapp and locate cameras other than the disclosed ones.

Some cameras use infrared which can be detected via your selfie camera. Just turn off lights and scan your room with phone camera.

Any red glowing or purple/blue light is the indication of IR releasing device and you might want to inspect it for camera’s presence.

Cameras inside the bedrooms and bathrooms are against Airbnb/VRBO rules, even if disclosed by the host in the agreement. Collect all the evidence in the form of pictures/videos and report it to the rental company to get your refund and customer support.