I was having a really stressful day and just couldn't concentrate in the noise and chaos of the main office. Since I knew she was away at a conference for a couple of days, I decided to use her office tucked a little out of the way, and hopefully get some solid work done. Needing two monitors I took one of mine to hook up to her computer and existing screen, reassuring myself that she wouldn't mind the temporary takeover of her space.
Whilst I was scrambling under the table trying to plug in the second monitor, I bumped my head on something. I didn't think much of it, assuming it was the table. But as I turned to look up I realised I'd actually bumped my head on a webcam, attached with a little mount to the underside of the desk. It took me a second to realise what it was, once I did I withdrew in shock.
I was horrified to think that somebody was secretly filming her without her knowledge and reached up to rip the camera down before realising that wouldn't help catch the perpetrator. I had to find out exactly what was going on before tampering with potential evidence. Plus, I didn't want to go straight to HR and risk the whole office finding out, probably before she was even informed. To minimise her embarrassment and since the investigation would come to us in IT anyway, I thought it best to begin inspecting myself, before involving anybody else.
I noticed the camera had a cable plugged into it, and followed it with my eyes down to a plug on the back of the computer. I thought that was weird: why use her own computer to spy on her? Surely that would be risking that she would notice a new camera installed on her pc, especially if she went to video chat with someone? I decided I didn't want to hang around under the desk - lest someone accuse me of having anything to do with it, and took my investigation to her computer.
I told myself that the situation was a justified use of my access to everybody's accounts - this was definitely a big security issue after all! I logged in and quickly checked her computer to see if there was any obvious malware or anything taking the feed of the camera to the perpetrator's website. My quick checks didn't yield anything - but I could see the camera plugged in just like a regular webcam - not hidden at all. I checked the web history quickly and didn't see anything other than work related things. I ran a quick search for movie files across the whole PC to see if there were any stored videos from the camera there - and stopped dead.
There were 30 or 40 movie files - the thumbnails showed the view from the camera: under the desk, her legs, sometimes closed, sometimes with pants and stockings visible, sometimes with her hands between her legs or down her trousers. Some of the thumbnails had some text: "Day 25... I almost get caught..." - "Day 15... Request for jeff4332". My eyes roved over the thumbnails. One seemed to have a handwritten sign stuck under the desk. It was pretty undeniable by this point that she was not only aware of the camera under her desk but had, in fact, orchestrated it.
I felt a small twinge in my trousers and my face turned red. I glanced up to make sure nobody had been watching me through the window of the door but the coast seemed clear. My eyes floated back and forth across the thumbnails. I knew I couldn't click on them... that would be wrong, not to mention stupid, given the evidence it could leave showing the files having been opened in her absence.