Stefanie Hubig, Germany’s Justice Minister and a member of the SPD, announced that she will seek to ban the taking of photos and videos from public saunas and spas. She pointed out that while many forms of digital voyeurism are already illegal-such as secretly photographing someone under their skirt or through a cut‑out-filming in a public sauna is not covered by current law. “There is a loophole, and I agree with it” she told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ).
Hubig described voyeuristic naked photographs of others as unacceptable, even when taken in public places like a sauna, a lake, or a spa. She vowed to establish “modern criminal rules against digital voyeurism” and stressed that no woman should have to tolerate becoming an object of spanner photos simply because a smartphone with a camera is always within reach. “The state has a protective responsibility in this area” she said.
However, she cautioned against overreaching. “As always when creating new criminal offenses, we must proceed carefully and limit sanctions to genuinely punishable behavior” the former judge explained. “In this specific context, we are not talking about casual photography; it is specifically about digital spanner shots-and nothing else”.