Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons.

by Adel Manoukian

If you’re a young woman taking the train, you may be filmed or photographed and not even know it.

John Zippy has uploaded 35 videos with titles like “Sexy Asian Girls” or “Hot Nerd Girl” onto his Youtube account and about 102 photographs of unsuspecting females on his blog entitled  “New York Subway Girls” since late February.

The 42-year-old man hides a camera in a Starbucks coffee cup to capture images of women he deems attractive, according to the NY Post.

Police figure they can do little to nothing about it as “intimate” filming of people without their consent can be brought to court but taping people in public is not a crime. Courts would have to decide what they consider “intimate” despite the invasion of privacy aspect since women are either sitting or walking in the videos and images.

Zippy understands that many people see this as “creepy”, as one of his videos shows what is up a blonde’s skirt as she reads a magazine, but he claims he does this for the sake of art.

“I have over the years had conversations with people…about how they saw the ‘most beautiful,’ ‘the hottest,’ ‘most amazing,’ ‘the finest’ woman on the subway followed by a vivid description worthy of a sonnet,” said Zippy in an email to the NY Post.

“I decided to try and capture this common occurrence in one place where people could share and comment in an open and nonjudgmental manner.”

Since news spread of this man, Youtube has taken down his account due to violations of the website’s nudity policy.