TWO traffic police employees were sacked after being identified as the voyeurs who used a traffic camera in Luohu District to peek into two nearby residential buildings earlier this month, yesterday's Chinese-language newspapers reported.

The two men, only known by their last names Xie and Liang, would be given administrative punishments, a press conference held by the public security bureau was told. But it was not clear what punishments they would receive.

Residents of two buildings in Wangyehaoyuan housing estate were outraged after local media revealed that the traffic camera atop Tongle Building near Yayuan Flyover had been turned towards their apartments from midnight to 5:30 a.m. for eight consecutive days starting April 26. The camera was installed to help monitor of traffic in the neighborhood.

It is said that half of the 700 occupied apartments in the two apartment buildings could be seen by the camera. The camera mainly film women taking showers and men undressing. The footage was then posted on the Internet.

The camera atop Tongle Building was installed in 1998. The public security bureau said about 200,000 cameras installed in 2006 were controlled by an automated system and there had been no abuses involving the new cameras.

The bureau also said the sprawling network of cameras had help the city combat crimes. More than half of criminal cases solved in 2007 were solved using camera footages to help solve more than half of the criminal cases, the bureau said.

The local legislature is planning to make rules on the use of surveillance cameras, the Southern Metropolis Daily said yesterday.

(Li Jing)