Coming up on The Right Hook, George will be talking to Dr Gillian Murphy, consultant dermatologist at Beaumont and the Mater hospitals, about the government's new restrictions on sunbed use. 

Tune in live at 6.20pm: http://www.newstalk.com/player/

In Norway, while the government considers a ban on tanning salons after a rise in skin cancer levels, a new issue has made it even more difficult for the champions of sunbeds: peeping Toms.

Regular reports of voyeurism as women soak up artificial rays have long persisted all over the Nordic country, renowned for its liberal attitude to nudity. But in the past seven days, a hidden camera was discovered disguised as a clothes peg in the dressing room of one salon, while two women at two different salons were filmed in the southern city of Stavanger.

“This is a known problem all over the country,” Stavanger police spokesman Henning Andersen told the Local. “It happens from time to time because there are some people who have such inclinations.” 

A 28-year-old man, suspect of carrying out both offences, has been arrested. The person who disguised the hidden camera remains at large.

The digital-video recording device was secreted inside a fake clothes peg. Its tiny lens, described as being the size of a match head, was connected to a memory card, from which the perpetrator could later download the images. Police officers say it is possible that the voyeur may have been selling the video online.

The sophisticated system even had a motion sensor, meaning the camera only started to record once a person had trigger the device by moving in front of it.

The hidden camera confiscated by Norwegian police [The Local]

Salon owner Rainer Hansen said he was certain few sun-bathing patrons had been affected.

“It had probably been installed just a few hours before it was discovered,” he said. “We already had coat hooks in the rooms before, so it seemed strange when a new one appeared.”

When it was uncovered, the hidden camera’s memory card only contained one recording of a customer undressing, but police admit they do not know when it was installed. The victim of the voyeur has been informed.

These high-profile Peeping Tom cases come at a time when Norway’s national health research institute is seeking a complete ban on the country’s love affair with sunbeds. The institute says that their popularity in dark and overcast Norway has contributed to a tenfold increase in the number of deaths from skin cancer.