BELMONT, N.C. — New technology is making it even harder for people to know if they are being watched.
This week, a man vacationing in Miami claims he found black boxes plugged into power outlets, including one in a bedroom of an Airbnb.
He said he researched the boxes and found them to be hidden cameras.
[READ MORE: Man accused of recording girls on his yacht in Myrtle Beach out of jail]
Realizing it was a huge violation of his privacy, he said he turned the SD cards in to police.
Skip Graham, owner of Spy Tech in Gaston County, specializes in that type of equipment and told Channel 9 he's been testing the same cameras at his Belmont office so he can better detect them in people's homes and businesses.
Graham showed Channel 9 how the live image can go right to your phone.
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[ALSO READ: Cherryville man accused of filming young girls in shower to face 40 new charges]
He said having something like this pointed in a bedroom is a violation of privacy.
So how do you detect a camera like this?
Graham said it’s tricky.
He has to use a special signal detector, and each device puts out a different sound.
“So if I pan over here to the device itself, you can hear that uptick in signal, and that’s telling us we have a bug in here,” Graham said.
Graham said he’s found smaller cameras for clients in places like smoke detectors and stuffed animals.
He said most of the time, he’s helping clients catch a bad guy.
“I see mostly people who are concerned about children or theft or property damage, that sort of thing,” Graham said.
Many of the cases Channel 9 has reported on involve something as simple as an IPhone or IPad that’s hidden to secretly record video.
That was the case against William Hillard in Cherryville.
Just this month, 40 new charges were filed against him.
He’s accused of secretly recording girls as young as 8 years old, some on his yacht off the coast of Myrtle Beach.
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