Hidden camera, naked photographs and blackmail: what the law does about it

Case summary

In mid-August 2019 a woman in Jinan, Shandong, Ms Zhang, received friend requests on both WeChat and QQ from the same stranger. Because the stranger knew her name, she assumed he was an acquaintance and accepted. On 14 August, however, the stranger sent her a naked photograph taken in the shower, and the person in it was Ms Zhang herself. She called the police at once.

With police help and guidance, she kept the stranger in conversation on WeChat. On the 17th he sent her seven or eight more naked photographs, falsely claimed to be a journalist, and demanded RMB 100,000 in cash for the return of the pictures, also requiring her to have sexual relations with him and adding that a refusal would cost her another RMB 10,000. In the end the two agreed on RMB 50,000, to be handed over in a public square.

The stranger, Yang, was arrested by police the moment he appeared in the square. It emerged that he had taken the photographs through the small bathroom window of Ms Zhang's flat, which is 1.8 metres above the ground, and had learned her personal details from her takeaway orders and courier packages, using them to win her trust and have her accept the friend request. Yang, now 33, has been held in criminal detention on suspicion of extortion.

The law

What makes out extortion here is not Yang's act of photographing the woman in the shower but his use of the photographs to demand property.

Article 42 of the Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security provides as follows.

A person who commits any of the following acts is detained for not more than five days or fined not more than RMB 500; where the circumstances are relatively serious, the person is detained for not less than five and not more than ten days and may in addition be fined not more than RMB 500:

(1) writing letters of intimidation or using other means to threaten the personal safety of another person;

(2) publicly insulting another person, or fabricating facts to defame another person;

(3) fabricating facts to bring a false accusation against another person, in an attempt to have that person subjected to criminal prosecution or to a public security penalty;

(4) threatening, insulting, beating or taking revenge on a witness or a close relative of a witness;

(5) repeatedly sending obscene, insulting, intimidating or other information, interfering with the normal life of another person;

(6) peeping at, secretly photographing, secretly recording or disseminating the privacy of another person.

Secretly photographing another person naked therefore does not amount to a crime, but it is unlawful.

Extortion is the act of compelling another person to hand over public or private property by threat or coercion, with the intention of unlawful possession.

Article 274 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, headed "extortion", provides that a person who extorts public or private property in a relatively large amount, or who extorts repeatedly, is sentenced to criminal detention, public surveillance or fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, and is fined or not; where the amount is huge or there are other serious circumstances, the person is sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three and not more than ten years and is fined; where the amount is especially huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, the person is sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years and is fined.

Article 1 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Extortion provides that extortion of public or private property worth between RMB 2,000 and RMB 5,000 or more, between RMB 30,000 and RMB 100,000 or more, and between RMB 300,000 and RMB 500,000 or more is to be regarded as a "relatively large amount", a "huge amount" and an "especially huge amount" respectively for the purposes of Article 274 of the Criminal Law.

The suspect Yang therefore most likely faces fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three and not more than ten years, together with a fine.

Women living alone should guard their privacy

As the saying goes, one should harbour no intention of harming others, but should never lack caution against being harmed. The bathroom window of Ms Zhang's flat is 1.8 metres above the ground, and an ordinary person would not think of peeping or photographing through it, but human nature is unpredictable and there are always wrongdoers who mean harm and hope to extort money by secret photography. We should therefore be alert and protect ourselves, rather than assuming that wrongdoers are far away. Care should also be taken when ordering takeaways and buying online, so that personal information is not disclosed.

Women living alone in particular need to protect their personal safety. In recent years there have again and again been cases of people threatened and blackmailed with naked photographs, some of them committed by people the victim knew. Women should therefore take care not to give wrongdoers an opportunity. Anyone who does encounter such a situation should call the police at once, seek police help, and use the law to protect her lawful rights.