Upskirting laws and penalties exist at both the federal level and in every state, and they punish anyone who uses a camera or phone to record under another person’s clothing without consent. A first offense against an adult is typically a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000 under federal law, but the stakes rise sharply when the victim is a minor, when images are shared, or when the defendant has a prior record. Beyond the sentence itself, a conviction can trigger mandatory sex offender registration, a marked passport, and a civil lawsuit from the person recorded.
What the Law Prohibits
A prosecutor pursuing one of these cases has to prove three things: that the defendant used a device to capture an image of another person’s intimate areas or undergarments, that the subject did not know or consent, and that the defendant acted intentionally. In most jurisdictions, the intent element is tied to a specific prohibited purpose, usually sexual gratification or deliberate invasion of privacy.
“Intimate areas” generally covers genitals, buttocks, or breasts that are concealed by clothing. The device used doesn’t matter. Smartphones, body-worn cameras disguised as pens or buttons, and lenses mounted on shoes all qualify. Cases are typically built from the digital files recovered off the device or a linked cloud account, along with metadata showing when and where images were captured.
The key legal point is that the area beneath a person’s clothing is private no matter where that person is standing. Courts treat clothing as a physical barrier that creates a protected zone, and using technology to defeat that barrier violates the victim’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Riding the subway, browsing a store, or walking through an airport does not forfeit that expectation. If the victim was wearing opaque clothing that concealed the area from the naked eye, the privacy standard is met, and the fact that a high-resolution camera can get past it is precisely what the law was written to address.
Federal Penalties
The Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1801, makes it a federal crime to intentionally capture an image of another person’s private area without consent under circumstances where the victim reasonably expected privacy. It applies within the “special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” which covers national parks, military bases, federal courthouses, and other federally controlled land.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1801 – Video Voyeurism
A violation is a federal misdemeanor carrying up to one year of imprisonment. The fine ceiling for an individual convicted of a Class A misdemeanor is $100,000 under the general federal sentencing statute.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1801 – Video Voyeurism2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine The statute’s definition of “capture” is broad enough to cover photographing, filming, recording by any means, and broadcasting, which means uploading the footage falls under the same provision as making it.
State Penalties and When a Case Becomes a Felony
Every state criminalizes this conduct in some form, though severity varies. Most states treat a first offense against an adult as a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine that typically runs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The exact ceiling depends on the state, the degree of the misdemeanor, and whether the statute sets a specific amount or defaults to a general sentencing schedule.
Charges escalate to felony level in predictable ways:
- A second or subsequent voyeurism offense pushes many states into felony territory with multi-year prison terms.
- Recording a child almost universally triggers felony charges and can bring federal child exploitation statutes into play.
- Sharing or posting the images frequently carries its own felony penalty on top of the recording offense, and some states treat distribution as a separate crime entirely.
Felony voyeurism convictions in many states carry three to five years of incarceration, and judges commonly order forfeiture of any electronic devices used in the offense. First-time misdemeanor defendants are more likely to receive probation, but that probation often comes with strict conditions: mandatory counseling, technology monitoring, and bans from locations where the victim may be present. Courts may also order restitution to cover the victim’s therapy costs.
When the Victim Is a Minor
This is where penalties change character entirely. Federal law classifies video voyeurism of a minor as a “specified offense against a minor” under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act,3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 20911 – Relevant Definitions, Including Amie Zyla Expansion of Sex Offense Definition which triggers mandatory sex offender registration regardless of whether the state would otherwise require it.
If prosecutors determine that the images meet the legal definition of child pornography, a separate set of federal statutes applies. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2251, producing sexually exploitative images of a child carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years in federal prison and a maximum of 30 years for a first offense. A defendant with a prior sex offense conviction faces 25 to 50 years.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2251 – Sexual Exploitation of Children The distance between a one-year misdemeanor under the voyeurism statute and a 15-year mandatory minimum under the child exploitation statute is the single most important thing anyone involved in one of these cases needs to understand.
Sex Offender Registration
A voyeurism conviction can trigger mandatory sex offender registration, and this is the consequence that reshapes a person’s life most permanently. Under the federal SORNA framework, video voyeurism under 18 U.S.C. § 1801 is classified as a Tier I sex offense.5SMART Office. Guide to SORNA – Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act Tier I requires 15 years of registration with annual in-person verification, though a clean record for 10 years can reduce the total period to 10 years.6eCFR. 28 CFR Part 72 – Sex Offender Registration and Notification
Registrants must provide their home address, employer name and address, and all email addresses and phone numbers to the registry, and any change triggers an update obligation.6eCFR. 28 CFR Part 72 – Sex Offender Registration and Notification Failing to register or keep information current is itself a separate felony in most jurisdictions. The registration appears on public databases and routinely leads to lost professional licenses, restricted housing options, and difficulty finding employment. State registration requirements don’t always mirror the federal tiers, and some states impose longer periods or assign voyeurism to a higher tier than SORNA requires.
Passport and International Travel Restrictions
Registered sex offenders face two separate federal restrictions on international travel. SORNA requires registered offenders to notify their registry at least 21 days before any intended travel outside the United States, and that notification is forwarded to the U.S. Marshals Service’s National Sex Offender Targeting Center.7SMART Office. SORNA – Information Required for Notice of International Travel
Under International Megan’s Law, the State Department will not issue a passport to a covered sex offender unless it contains a “unique identifier,” a visual designation in a conspicuous location indicating the holder is a registered sex offender.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 22 USC 212b – Unique Passport Identifiers for Covered Sex Offenders Passports previously issued without the identifier can be revoked. For someone convicted of what began as a misdemeanor voyeurism charge, the passport notation alone can alter every aspect of international travel for the duration of registration.
What a Victim Can Recover
Criminal prosecution is not the only route. A victim can also sue the person who recorded or distributed the images, and federal law now provides a specific cause of action when intimate images are shared without consent.
Under 15 U.S.C. § 6851, enacted as part of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2022, a person whose intimate images are disclosed without consent can sue in federal court. A successful plaintiff can recover either actual damages or liquidated damages of $150,000, plus attorney’s fees and court costs. The court can also issue injunctions ordering the defendant to stop displaying or distributing the images.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images The plaintiff must show the defendant either knew they lacked consent or recklessly disregarded whether consent existed, and the law allows victims to proceed under a pseudonym to protect their privacy during the litigation.10U.S. Department of Justice. Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent – Know Your Rights
Beyond the federal statute, victims in most states can bring common-law invasion of privacy claims seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress, therapy costs, and lost income, as well as punitive damages when the defendant’s conduct was particularly egregious. The statute of limitations typically falls between one and five years depending on the state. Because the criminal case and the civil case are independent proceedings, a victim can pursue both, and a civil suit can succeed even if criminal charges were never filed or resulted in acquittal, since the burden of proof is lower.
When It Happens at Work
If the recording happens on the job, the victim may have claims against the employer as well as the individual offender. Under federal harassment law, an employer can be held vicariously liable for a supervisor’s conduct when the harassment resulted in a tangible employment action like a demotion or termination. Even without a tangible action, the employer faces liability unless it can show it took reasonable steps to prevent harassment and the employee failed to use available complaint procedures.11U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance – Vicarious Employer Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors
When the offender is a coworker rather than a supervisor, the employer’s liability turns on whether it knew or should have known about the conduct and failed to act. An employer that ignores reports of a camera found in a restroom or dismisses complaints about an employee’s suspicious behavior near coworkers is exposed to significant liability. Victims should report the conduct to both law enforcement and the employer’s human resources department, and document both reports in writing.
Defenses That Can Actually Work
Because the crime requires intentional conduct, the most direct defense is showing the recording was accidental. A phone that auto-records when a button is bumped, or a body camera that captures footage while being adjusted, can negate the intent element. The prosecution has to prove the defendant deliberately aimed a device at someone’s private area with the purpose of recording it.
Other defenses that arise:
- Consent, meaning evidence that the person depicted agreed to the recording. This is rare in upskirting cases but can surface when the parties had a prior relationship.
- No reasonable expectation of privacy. This defense rarely succeeds when the recording penetrated beneath clothing, but it sometimes applies to recordings of exposed areas in public settings.
- Evidence suppression, challenging how law enforcement obtained the device or its contents. If police searched a phone without a warrant and no exception applied, the digital files may be inadmissible.
- Misidentification, disputing that the defendant was the person who made the recording, particularly when the device was shared or accessible to others.
None of these are silver bullets. Accidental-recording claims fall apart quickly when forensic analysis shows dozens of similar images taken over weeks, and a consent defense carries a heavy burden when the alleged consent was never documented. But the intent requirement does mean that prosecutors who can’t prove deliberate conduct won’t get a conviction.