"Have some respect and give them some f***ing privacy, not everything needs to be put on social media for the whole world to see. You should be ashamed of yourselves," wrote one Facebook user.
In New Zealand, you are not allowed to photograph or video a person who has a "reasonable expectation of privacy". This includes someone who believes that he or she is in a private location and no one is watching.
Recording people through a window or in the privacy of their own home is likely to land you in trouble.
However, it's not the first time couples have been exposed in the act. In 2015 two Christchurch work colleagues were caught in a late-night sex romp in their office building.
Although the Christchurch incident occurred in a public place, privacy law expert Nicole Moreham has said people can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a publicly visible place.
"Do two people who have sex in an office block, unwittingly in full view of a pub full of people, have any legal rights if one of those onlookers decides to film the incident and post the footage on the internet? The answer is probably 'yes'."
"The fact that something takes place in public or is visible from a public place doesn't stop a person from establishing a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of it," Moreham wrote back in 2015.
"Justice Allan stated this to be the law in Andrews v TVNZ, a case that involved the broadcast of detailed footage of a couple being extricated from a car wreck.
"He said: 'It will not always be a complete answer to a claim to a reasonable expectation of privacy to show that the relevant facts or information arose from something occurring in public. In exceptional cases a person might be entitled to maintain a claim to protection from additional publicity, although the relevant circumstances arose in public, and were observed, or were observable, by those in the immediate vicinity.'
"He went on to apply that law to the Andrews case and said, that even though the accident occurred in a public place, the couple's conversations were still private:
"'Although the plaintiffs would have been aware that they would be overheard by those around them, they had a legitimate expectation that there would be no additional publicity. Neither was aware that they were being filmed throughout from close range.'
"In other words, just because the accident happened in a public place, it doesn't necessarily mean it is okay to broadcast it to the world at large. This is especially the case if the people in question didn't know they were being filmed.
"If you apply that reasoning to the Christchurch sex romp, just because a bunch of people in a bar happened to see two people having sex, it doesn't mean it's okay to film them and post the clip on YouTube. That is particularly likely to be the case where, as in Christchurch, the couple had no idea they were being watched, let alone filmed."
In New Zealand, it is a criminal offence to make an intimate visual recording of a person and carry a prison term of up to three years.
Section 216G of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 explains that an intimate visual recording is:
(1)... a visual recording (for example, a photograph, videotape, or digital image) that is made in any medium using any device without the knowledge or consent of the person who is the subject of the recording, and the recording is of:
(a) a person who is in a place which, in the circumstances, would reasonably be expected to provide privacy, and that person is
(i) naked or has his or her genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breasts exposed, partially exposed, or clad solely in undergarments; or
(ii) engaged in an intimate sexual activity...
In the case of the Australian tradies filming a couple having sex in their apartment, it's safe to say that the privacy of the couple has well and truly been invaded.
