According to the BBC, New Zealand is planning to crack down on up skirt filming — wherein voyeurs use camera phones, camcorders or other devices in public to surreptitiously film under women’s clothes.
A surprising number of jurisdictions, including many states in the United States, discovered as the practice became more common they didn’t have specific laws to address the problem (and, generally, recording video in public places is considered unproblematic in most instances).
New Zealand Justice Minister Phil Goff told the BBC,
It is the most serious form of intrusion that someone can make into the privacy of another individual, filming them in the most intimate situations that you can imagine. Technology makes the problem much worse, both in terms of offensive publications and in terms of voyeuristic behavior. We’ve got to update the legislation to cater for the changes in technology which make it easier for people both to capture the images and to distribute them.
New Zealand is currently proposing changes in its laws that would make up skirt filming punishable by up to three years in prison. Knowingly possessing video or other materials obtained in this manner would be punishable by up to one year in prison.
Source:
NZ aims to jail ‘up skirt’ snappers. Kim Griggs, The BBC, December 9, 2004.