STRONGER legal protections against the covert filming of women in public will be under discussion when Bath MP Wera Hobhouse meets with the Minister for Safeguarding, Jess Phillips.

Ms Hobhouse warned that current legislation was lagging behind the rise of exploitative social media ‘nightlife content’ and online misogynistic abuse.

Speaking in Parliament, the Liberal Democrat MP, who previously secured a change in the law on upskirting, raised concerns about the growing number of online accounts presenting themselves as ‘nightlife content’ or ‘walking tours’ while publishing footage of women on nights out without their knowledge or consent.

This is often accompanied by degrading, sexualised, and misogynistic commentary.

Ms Hobhouse highlighted BBC reporting which found that secretly filmed videos of women have been viewed more than three billion times in recent years, with footage frequently monetised online and used to generate engagement through abusive comments.

Examples documented alongside the videos included remarks such as ‘look at how these ladies are dressed, no wonder they get attacked’, and ‘easy meat’.

A man in Manchester was arrested in 2024 on suspicion of stalking and harassment for this kind of behaviour, but no further action was taken due to limitations in the current legislation.

Ms Hobhouse’s intervention follows her ongoing work to develop proposals which would close legal loopholes by strengthening protections under harassment law.

She asked what assessment had been made of the adequacy of existing legal frameworks in relation to the non-consensual filming of women in public.

Ms Hobhouse said although victims experienced the content as invasive and humiliating, current legislation did not clearly address situations where women were filmed in public, fully clothed, but deliberately targeted for sexualised attention or online abuse.

She has been meeting with women’s organisations and campaign groups working on violence against women and girls, including organisations focused on online safety and technology-facilitated abuse, to ensure any legislative reform is precise, workable, and does not undermine legitimate filming in public.

The covert filming practice has had a profound impact on victims, with women filmed in this way describing feeling violated and saying the experience has left them less safe and less confident in public spaces.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, acknowledged the Bath MP’s concerns and agreed to meet with her to discuss whether further reform is needed alongside the implementation of new protections under the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which comes into effect from April 1.

Ms Hobhouse said: “Women should be able to go about their lives without fear that they are being secretly recorded, sexualised, and turned into online content for profit.

“Public filming has an important place in a free society, but the law must recognise when that crosses the line into targeted harassment.

“Where women are deliberately singled out and exposed to degrading commentary simply because of their sex, that is not harmless content, it is misogyny, and the law needs to catch up.”