Peeping Toms strike at Norway tanning salons
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Published: 13 Feb, 2015 CET.
Updated: Fri 13 Feb 2015 21:41 CET
As Norway mulls a ban on cancer-causing tanning salons, a new peril has emerged, with a spate of peeping toms filming customers as they soak in the artificial rays.
This week alone, a hidden camera was discovered disguised as a clothes peg in the dressing room of a salon in Norway’s Lofoton archipelago, while in Stavanger on Friday, two women at different salons were surreptitiously filmed as they basked. “This is a known problem all over the country,” warned Henning Andersen from the local police in Stavanger. “It happens from time to time because there are some people who have such inclinations.” Stavanger police on Friday quickly tracked down and arrested a 28-year-old man, who they believe carried out both offences. The person who placed the hidden camera remains at large, however. According to police in Leknes, the main town in Lofoten, the camera was housed in a fake clothes peg, boasted a tiny lens the size of match head, and was connected to a memory card from which the perpetrator could later download images for his own perverted enjoyment, or perhaps even for sale. The device had a motion sensor which triggered the camera if anyone began to move in front of it.
Rainer Hansen, the owner of the Brun och Blid salon where the camera was found, said he believed few customers had been affected.
“It had probably been installed just a few hours before it was discovered,” he said. “We already had coat hooks in the rooms before, so it seemed strange when a new one appeared.” The card only contained one recording of a customer undressing by the time the camera was seized, although police are as yet unsure of whether it had been already been emptied of images and reloaded. “We have been in contact with her,” officer Dag Sture Strøm, from the police in Leknes told NRK. “She of course feels extremely uncomfortable, but she is glad that the police came and informed her of this film.” The device has been sent to Norway’s national criminal investigation service for analysis. Norway's national health research institute at the start of this month issued a report calling for a discussion in the country on an outright ban on tanning salons, arguing that their popularity in the dark, often overcast nation, had contributed to a tenfold increase in deaths from skin cancer. Here is a police photograph of the spy camera found on Lofoten. 
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This week alone, a hidden camera was discovered disguised as a clothes peg in the dressing room of a salon in Norway’s Lofoton archipelago, while in Stavanger on Friday, two women at different salons were surreptitiously filmed as they basked.
“This is a known problem all over the country,” warned Henning Andersen from the local police in Stavanger. “It happens from time to time because there are some people who have such inclinations.”
Stavanger police on Friday quickly tracked down and arrested a 28-year-old man, who they believe carried out both offences. The person who placed the hidden camera remains at large, however.
According to police in Leknes, the main town in Lofoten, the camera was housed in a fake clothes peg, boasted a tiny lens the size of match head, and was connected to a memory card from which the perpetrator could later download images for his own perverted enjoyment, or perhaps even for sale.
The device had a motion sensor which triggered the camera if anyone began to move in front of it.
Rainer Hansen, the owner of the Brun och Blid salon where the camera was found, said he believed few customers had been affected.
“It had probably been installed just a few hours before it was discovered,” he said. “We already had coat hooks in the rooms before, so it seemed strange when a new one appeared.”
The card only contained one recording of a customer undressing by the time the camera was seized, although police are as yet unsure of whether it had been already been emptied of images and reloaded.
“We have been in contact with her,” officer Dag Sture Strøm, from the police in Leknes told NRK. “She of course feels extremely uncomfortable, but she is glad that the police came and informed her of this film.”
The device has been sent to Norway’s national criminal investigation service for analysis.
Norway's national health research institute at the start of this month issued a report calling for a discussion in the country on an outright ban on tanning salons, arguing that their popularity in the dark, often overcast nation, had contributed to a tenfold increase in deaths from skin cancer.
Here is a police photograph of the spy camera found on Lofoten.
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