Baidu Releases An App To Detect Hidden Cameras In Hotels

One of the problems many people worry about when renting a room somewhere, is the hidden cameras. Recently, Chinese giant, Baidu introduced an application to help detect hidden cameras.

This application is called "Privacy Protection Special Version". Baidu Security said it is a tool that can quickly detect Wi-Fi connected cameras just by pressing a button on the application interface.


Baidu Security researchers said that most of the hidden cameras use the same technology. Usually a small camera that supports Wi-Fi can be controlled remotely by other applications or software.

After viewing the internet protocols used by these Wi-Fi cameras, Baidu developed an application that uses this information to detect the camera after connecting to the same Wi-Fi network.

This however, means that you won't be able to pinpoint exactly where the camera is hidden, but can tell you in the room where you have a camera that transmits video over the hotel's Wi-Fi network you are connected to.

Places where cameras are often hidden

Other types of camera detection apps have been around for a long time. Most of them rely on the detection of infrared light or electromagnetic fields, but Baidu says they are not always reliable.

The infrared light emitted from the camera

Anyways, both methods are not 100% secure, Baidu's application requires that the hidden camera and your smartphone must be connected to the same Wifi network in order to detect, while infrared-based applications do not have high accuracy and difficult to observe. Therefore, when renting a room, if possible, you should choose a reputable place for safety.

Further, this app is only available for Android device, but we do hope that it reaches iOS users in near future. To download this new Baidu camera detecting app "privacy protection special version", simply click here