College girl snapper arrested for taking photo on Tokyo suburban train

Let this be a warning to everyone: Don’t snap pictures of hot Japanese girls you don’t know. Anywhere.

Sure, we know we shouldn’t do this in the office when a cutie goes by. And we also know there are plenty of cases of people being arrested for taking photos under girls’ skirts.

But just an innocent snap of a pretty girl on the train. Surely this wouldn’t be a police matter, right?

Wrong.

On the evening of August 28th, a 40-year-old Kawasaki City employee was riding the Denentoshin Line, a major suburban train line between Tokyo and Yokohama. He glanced at a cute 21-year-old female college student sitting next to him. He decided to take a photo.

There was nothing salacious about it. No panties. No zooming up her skirt.

But the municipal environmental department worker found himself in Kanagawa police custody on suspicious of breaching prefectural anti-nuisance ordinances, facing a hefty sentence.

Police said that he had used a USB stick-shaped camera to snap a shot of the girl from head to toe.

There have been similar cases before. Someone who snapped a girl from behind while she was passing by in 2008 was found guilty. As was a man who snapped a photo of a sleeping girl on a train in Chiba in 2011. In Kanagawa, the anti-nuisance ordinance carries a potential penalty of a year in prison and a ¥1 million ($10,000) fine!

A lawyers has actually said that according to the letter of the law, all you need to do is simply point your phone or camera in a girl’s direction and you are in danger of arrest.

So… next time you are in Shibuya and see that hot girl standing in front of you at Scramble Crossing — think twice before reaching for your iPhone’s camera!