Viral Video Showing a Surveillance Camera Visible in Fitting Room Mirror Sparks Debate

A viral video showing a surveillance camera clearly visible from a fitting room mirror has sparked debate.

The video was uploaded to TikTok on October 18 by Nallely Valencia (@naeevalencia), who wrote: "I know I'm not trippen [sic] & this is absolutely not allowed." The post has received more than 640,000 views and nearly 38,000 likes.

According to the post, the footage was recorded inside of a Windsor clothing store in Modesto, California.

"Wow I'm so mad, I literally noticed when I was putting my clothes back on," reads the video's text overlay. Here, the camera zooms in on the surveillance camera that can be seen reflected in the mirror.

"You mean to tell me they watched me get naked," reads the text overlay of a Snapchat image used in the video.

Legal news website Dopplr previously reported that only 13 states prohibit the use of any "monitoring systems" in dressing rooms. One of those states is California.

However, in those states where surveillance cameras are allowed in dressing rooms, monitoring "must be done as loss prevention only," said Dopplr.

"Any motive other than this is illegal and would cause the store to be fined heavily," the website added.

Since the camera spotted in Valencia's video is seen through the fitting room mirror, it remains unclear if the camera was actually located in the fitting room area or on the main floor. It's also possible that the camera was monitoring a different area of the store and not, as Valencia implied, monitoring the fitting rooms.

Some commenters even argued that the camera could be fake.

Newsweek has reached out to Valencia for comment.

Still, some commenters were horrified at the thought of being surveilled while changing.

"That's why I don't try on things in stores anymore," said Alicia2Vega831.

"That is so scary and who knows how many people changed and it went unnoticed," commented rav.

But many argued that there was nothing to be concerned about.

"It's in almost every clothing store not for spying on ya changing but theft," said one commenter.

"It's literally facing the other way chill," commented Jesse2091.

Dro asked: "how do you know it's facing towards the fitting room? No hate just asking."

Valencia didn't reply.

When a TikToker user named Mild argued that all clothing stores monitor their dressing rooms, a commenter quipped back saying: "no they don't. It's quite literally illegal to record someone [chaning]."

When Mild doubled down on their comment, the other commenter doubled down on theirs as well.

As previously mentioned, dressing room surveillance laws vary from state to state.

In a statement obtained by Newsweek, Windsor Fashions said: "The privacy and safety of our customers is of the utmost importance to Windsor Fashions and we are committed to making our stores feel safe. The camera in question was installed by a previous store tenant and was not active in any way since Windsor's opening. We permanently removed the non-operational camera in question once it was brought to our attention and sincerely apologize for any concern this may have caused."

Update 12/07/2021: This story has been updated to include a statement from Windsor Fashions.