Public anger was stirred yesterday when Taipei police released on bail a 25-year-old man who was charged for hiding cameras in women’s bathrooms at schools and hospitals in Taipei and New Taipei City over a period of more than four years.
The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was last week arrested and charged with offenses against personal privacy, but was released on bail of NT$50,000 yesterday.
Investigators and police late last month raided Chang’s residence in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), where they found compromising materials and evidence, they said on Thursday.
Chang, allegedly began to place cameras in high-school and public restrooms in 2014 when he was studying at National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei City Police Renai Police Station Chief Huang Chien-chang (黃建彰) said.
Large numbers of images were found on Chang’s computer and storage devices, Huang said, adding that a preliminary investigation showed that Chang might have filmed more than 800 women, but the number could be higher.
Investigators found that Chang filmed in bathrooms at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine, various Taipei hospitals, Taipei and New Taipei City municipal buildings, Soochow University and several girls’ high schools, among other public buildings, Huang said.
Chang appears to have visited the schools during special events or anniversaries, when they were open to the public, police said.
Chang attached tiny cameras inside the rubber end of washroom plungers and taped them over with black duct tape before placing them in toilet stalls, Huang said, adding that he later returned to collect the cameras’ storage drives.
Police found that Chang had searched the Internet and social media for women who he deemed attractive, they said.
Police quoted Chang as saying during questioning that he had never had a girlfriend and was curious, and that the images were for his private viewing.
However, police said they suspected he had shared some of the images with friends, who investigators are trying to track down.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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