A lengthy CNN report says the issue seems to be a significant one. There are thousands of images recovered by law enforcement alone from hosts of short-term rentals. Hidden cameras reveal guests in most private moments, setting them in bedrooms and bathrooms — changing clothes or being with their children, sometimes even having sex. CNN’s review of court and police records — as well as interviews with nearly two dozen guests who discovered the surveillance devices or were told about the device by police.
But the scale of the problem had previously been unknown because of a number of policies and practices by Airbnb itself. These include trying to settle cases through arbitration and not alerting police even when it appears clear a crime has been committed.
The employee from Airbnb said that in a day of hours-long depositions, it is not, as a matter of practice, the firm’s policy to notify the police if guests discover hidden cameras – even in the case of a child. The company has released complaints of hosts to guests as part of its internal investigations, which the law enforcement authorities said would undermine criminal investigations since suspects are able to use the information to tamper with evidence […].
Airbnb attempts to compel complainants to arbitration whose cases cannot be placed into public record, according to six lawyers who acted for clients in actions taken against the short-term rental platform. Confidentiality settlements have, however, shackled users of Airbnb in having to sign them and hence kept them from discussing details regarding the deal. In response, Airbnb informed CNN that its use of arbitration and non-disclosure agreements are standard industry practice.
A court had ordered the company to divulge information on how many complaints it has received about surveillance devices installed in Airbnb properties in the last decade. That number turned out to be 35,000.
Europe regulates the short-term rental industry, imposing wide-ranging controls on how companies like Airbnb can operate, but the US has no similar federal regulations. According to the report, this lets the company insist it is only a tech platform and that it can’t possibly be held responsible for anything occurring in the rental properties. This is Airbnb’s defense under Section 230, a legal provision drafted to protect web publishers from liability for comments posted by users.
