Parliament backs new 'peeping tom' laws

Parliament is giving unanimous support to legislation that will make intimate covert filming a criminal offence.

The "peeping tom" bill was given its first reading yesterday after Justice Minister Phil Goff said it dealt with a serious and growing problem.

"Generally, covert filming has a sexual element. Whatever the intention, it constitutes an invasion of personal privacy...it is an affront to human dignity," he said.

"The old offence of peeping and peering has been aggravated by the advent of new technology. The internet facilitates the transfer of these pictures around the country and beyond."

The Crimes (Intimate Covert Filming) Amendment Bill defines the offence as "making a surreptitious visual record of another person in intimate circumstances without the person's consent or knowledge, and in circumstances that the person would reasonably expect to be private".

It creates new offences, all carrying maximum sentences of three years jail, covering making a recording, possession, import and export, and selling.

An offence of simple possession -- with no intention to publish, export or sell -- carries a maximum one year sentence.

Mr Goff said miniature cameras, mobile phone cameras and other devices had been used to visually record women and children while they were undressed.

"Voyeurism is offensive in itself, but additionally is potentially a gateway offence to more serious sexual offending," he said.

The bill protects agencies which use covert filming for detection and investigation, such as police activities.

National's justice spokesman, Richard Worth, said his party would back the bill.

His colleague, Wayne Mapp, said the select committee which dealt with it would have to fix the gaps.

He said newspapers could be caught by the legislation, and gave as an example a picture taken of a high-profile person with an under-age prostitute.

"The person involved would consider his privacy had been breached...on the face of it this bill appears to make that sort of activity illegal," he said.

"Newspapers actually do, from time to time, protect the public good."

New Zealand First MP Peter Brown pledged his party's backing.

"It's a sad day in New Zealand when we have to produce legislation like this, but there are weirdos out there who do this sort of thing," he said.

"I believe that in future it will become more prevalent...the sort of videos that get through the censors feed the brains of people who do this."

Act's Stephen Franks said the select committee would have a lot of issues to consider.

He wondered whether the bill would put an end to the private detective business.

"For many years they've been filming sexual activity for divorce cases," he said.

The Green's justice spokesman, Nandor Tanczos, wondered whether it was going to be illegal to possess a magazine with paparazzi pictures in it of topless film stars.

No party opposed the bill and it passed its first reading without dissent.

It has been sent to the government administration select committee for public submissions.

- NZPA