Women filmed in secret restricted in fighting back

Creepy act of recording people in public presents an ethical dilemma as well as a legal one

Casey Grace Ferneyhough and her friends were enjoying a walk through Trinity-Bellwoods Park about five years ago when a man sauntered by and began hitting on them. Persistently.

It wasn’t until the man moved on to another group of girls that Ferneyhough noticed a second man following from a few metres away with a camera. Two months later, she discovered the YouTube video the pair made of their attempts to pick up other women in the park that day.

Though Ferneyhough, now 22, didn’t make the final cut of the video, she still felt “almost violated.”

“It was a breach of privacy to know that my conversation with this guy was being recorded and I could have been online,” she said. “I was underage too, and I’m pretty sure we were in our school uniform at the time, so it was already creepy.”

As nasty of a surprise as it may be to find a secretly recorded video of you posted online, there’s very little that women in them can do about it.

The issue of recording people in public without their consent made headlines this month after Calgary police arrested a man they allege posted voyeuristic photos and videos of various women to Twitter under the name “CanadaCreep.”

Jeffrey Robert Williamson, 42, was rearrested Friday on child pornography charges.

“CanadaCreep” veered into illegal territory by shooting video up women’s skirts, a criminal offence. The account had racked up about 17,000 followers and had been active for a year before it was suspended.

But recording someone in public space isn’t illegal. Though a civil case might be possible, it would be difficult to win, said Bernice Karn, a lawyer with the law firm Cassels Brock.

“The behaviour would have to be fairly outrageous for there to be any likelihood of success,” Karn said in an email to the Star.

The techniques used in videos made by self-styled “pickup artists” are more subtle, presenting more of an ethical dilemma than a legal one.

More than 77,000 people follow 30year-old Vadim Dorfman’s Torontobased YouTube channel, which is dedicated to teaching men how to seduce prospective dates and improve their lives using real-life examples. Though some of the women know the camera is rolling, many have no idea. Dorfman and his business partner, 24-year-old Austen Sangfroid, often use a hidden cameraman or a GoPro planted in their apartment.

Most videos on the channel show one of them talking to women on the street.

But in one titled “How To Prepare Your Place For Sex (with real examples),” women appear in various stages of undress with strategic blurring of their faces and breasts. Dorfman confirmed that not all know they’re being recorded, but that he tries to hide their identities as much as possible.

“Protecting people’s (identities) and respecting their rights to privacy is of the utmost importance,” Dorfman said via email.

Since the blurring obscures their identities, posting such footage doesn’t appear to be illegal, said Toronto police Const. Allyson DouglasCook.

Though the pair say they recognize the subjects of their videos might find it “creepy,” they say secrecy is necessary to prove the product works — a product they say has helped change their customers’ lives, giving them confidence and lifting them out of depression.

In the four years since Dorfman began posting videos using the account, called “Honest Signalz,” it’s grown into a full-time business. He and Sangfroid charge thousands of dollars for in-person workshops.

Despite Dorfman and Sangfroid making derogatory comments about women Dorfman said his channel actually teaches respect and empathy for the opposite sex. “It’s just boys’ locker room humour,” Dorfman added. “It’s tongue-in-cheek.”

YouTube didn’t answer queries about whether it has received complaints about Honest Signalz in the past. Though Dorfman and Sangfroid sometimes ask permission when filming some of their more comedic videos, they said they don’t do so with others. The secrecy maintains the authenticity of the women’s reactions, they said.

“We usually ask for (consent) and record it on video in verbal form at the end of a segment, sometimes midway,” Dorfman said in an email.

Dorfman and Sangfroid weren’t the ones who hit on Ferneyhough. Regardless, she said she finds the premise of such videos dehumanizing.

“You feel like you’re being studied . . . like you’re prey,” she said. “That’s not how any girl wants to be approached.”