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Auckland's Nealie and Andrew Barker were at the heart of a 14-month trip to Europe when they arrived on the Airbnb property with their four children and their niece.
Once the family was unpacked, Andrew Barker, who is responsible for computer security, analyzed the home's Wi-Fi network.
The scan uncovered a camera and then a live stream. From the angle of the video, the family found the camera hidden in what appeared to be a smoke detector or a carbon monoxide detector.
"It was such a shock – it was just a really horrible feeling," Nealie Barker told CNN.
She called Airbnb to report the camera. "They had no advice to give us over the phone," she said. "The girl just said that if you cancel within 14 days, you will not get your money back."
Then Andrew Barker called the owner of the property. When Nealie Barker was confronted with the discovery of the family, the host hung up. Later, he recalled, insisting that the camera in the living room was the only one in the house.
"We did not feel relieved by that," she said, adding that the host had refused to confirm when he was recording the live stream or recording the audio.
The family moved to a nearby hotel and called Airbnb the next day. "They still did not seem to understand the seriousness of the problem, they treated it as a canceled reservation," Nealie Barker said. In the end, Airbnb's trusted and security team promised to conduct an investigation and temporarily suspended the list.
According to Nealie Barker, Airbnb has not contacted the family. Two weeks later, the company told them that the facilitator had been "exonerated" and the list reinstated.
In a statement, Airbnb told CNN: "The security and privacy of our community – online and offline – is our top priority, Airbnb policies strictly prohibit hidden cameras in the lists and we take the reports of We have definitely removed this bad actor from our platform. "
"Our initial management of this incident did not meet the high standards we had set ourselves and we apologized to the family and we paid off their entire stay.There were more than half a billion visitors on Airbnb listings to date and negative incidents are incredibly rare. "
Aoife Mullen, chief communications officer of the Irish Data Protection Commission, told CNN that the commission was "aware of the problem", adding that "we will seek further information on this from Airbnb ".
The Barker family is currently in Budapest, where, said Nealie Barker, "We are currently staying in an Airbnb."
"We have become much more cautious now," she said, advising other travelers to learn how to scan networks for hidden cameras. "We think people need to understand that the travel market is largely unregulated.If you want to avoid being filmed, then you have to take all the appropriate steps."
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