A Springfield woman recently made a shocking discovery within her own home — a fake smoke detector contained a miniature spy camera pointed toward her bedroom.
Shannon Archambault, 31, a resident of the city’s Indian Orchard neighborhood, pulled down the device two weeks ago and found the recorded video footage dated back over the past five months.
“My privacy was completely shattered,” Archambault said in an interview with MassLive. She said her ex-boyfriend installed it outside her bedroom in May based on the video footage she viewed.
“He did it while I was at work,” she said, adding that in January she found a spy camera hidden in a phone charger in her room. When she confronted her boyfriend about it, “He shrugged it off like it was nothing,” she said.
“That time I said ‘whatever, he’s being overprotective,’” she said. “Now he’s being vindictive and malicious with this stuff. He’s threatened me multiple times to put pictures and videos on the internet.”
The couple is no longer together and Archambault said she only found out about the hidden camera in the smoke detector because his friend showed up at her house and warned her about it.
“My heart hurt because I loved this man,” she said. “I freaked out.”
Archambault said the hidden camera streamed a live feed to her ex-boyfriend’s phone based on a video she saw from the device.
She hopes that her story will make people more aware of these hidden camera devices that are widely available online.
“My message for people is please, please, please make sure you really know somebody before you let them completely in your life,” Archambault said.
The fake smoke detector appears troublingly ordinary in photographs shared by Archambault with MassLive. A tiny pinhole camera peers out of the side of the fake smoke detector that might not easily be detectable once installed on a ceiling.
The photographs by Archambault show the fake smoke detector opened up to show where a memory card fits.
A Springfield woman recently discovered she’s been spied on through a fake smoke detector since May.Courtesy of Shannon Archambault
There are several makers of these types of fake smoke detector spy cameras, which are widely available online.
Many of these devices are advertised as not having smoke alarm functions and that they can be used for 24-hour live surveillance. Some have hidden infrared lights for night vision.
News reports from within the past year show there are other examples of people being unwittingly filmed by spy cameras in similarly deceptive devices.
A Texas couple filed a lawsuit against a Maryland Airbnb host after finding multiple hidden cameras disguised as smoke detectors in a bathroom and bedroom where they stayed for two days, Fox News reported.
In this instance, one of the guests — who installs smoke detectors professionally — felt it odd that there was a smoke detector in the middle of the ceiling and a second in the corner of the room. This led the guest to examine the smoke detector and noticed a camera lens, which led him to “hyperventilate and experience shock” since the couple had been intimate together during their stay.
A news report from Rochester, New York, describes how a 62-year-old Byron man was charged with interfering with privacy, a misdemeanor offense, for allegedly using a fake smoke detector with a hidden camera to spy on a woman who stayed in a spare bedroom at the man’s house, according to the Post Bulletin.
Filing charges
Archambault alerted the Springfield Police Department last week and she said she wants to press charges against her ex-boyfriend. An investigator told Archambault that charges could be filed if she was filmed while undressed. He said he would need a search warrant approved to review the footage.
She is also seeking to press charges against a friend of her ex-boyfriend who she said helped install the device.
Ryan Walsh, a spokesperson for the Springfield Police Department, said detectives are investigating Archambault’s situation and that a suspect is already being held on unrelated charges. Attorney Joe Smith, listed as representing the suspect in court documents, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“The charges depend on if someone was able to view this video in person or remotely and what was actually recorded, as well as the circumstances behind how it was installed,” Walsh said.
A few laws may be applicable in Archambault’s case. Massachusetts’ wiretapping law — often referred to as a “two-party consent law” — means that a person cannot secretly record audio, including during video recording, according to a Boston law firm.
Another Massachusetts law prohibits photographing, videotaping or electronically surveilling a partially nude or nude person in secret and while the person being filmed has a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” according to the state’s general law.
Edward Molari, a Boston defense attorney, told MassLive that even if the video footage does not show that Archambault was filmed in the nude, authorities could attempt to bring charges if they can include “an element of specific intent.”
Since the camera was pointed to her bedroom that may be possible, but intent is difficult to prove, Molari said.
Archambault said she has “unlimited texts” with her ex-boyfriend about the hidden camera.
“He put it up because he wanted to catch me cheating on video and threatened to post stuff online,” she said.
When it comes to wiretapping laws, Molari said, there is a “heightened expectation of privacy within your own home,” which the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has reaffirmed.
Archambault could also explore the option of a civil lawsuit for monetary damages, but it could be challenging to quantify the emotional distress brought on by the hidden camera, according to Molari.
