Anyone who has shopped for clothing knows the heartbreak that comes when you find the perfect garment only to try it on and have it not fit, but it turns out that is far from the worst thing that can happen to you in a dressing room, as one person on TikTok is revealing.
While you might assume the fitting room is a private place to change clothes, that isn't always the case, and Nallely Valencia is warning people about it in her TikTok video. The clip shows a photo Nallely took of herself in the mirror of the changing room in a clothing store at a California mall. The camera zooms in on the mirror and shows, not far away, a dome on the ceiling - the kind that hides a security camera. That means that thanks to the mirror's reflection, security would have a clear shot of anyone changing in the fitting rooms.
She captioned the video, "I know I’m not trippen & this is absolutely not allowed. Smh Windsor in Modesto Ca." The text shown on her footage reads, "Wow I'm so mad, I literally noticed when I was putting my clothes back on," and another part says, "You mean to tell me they watched me get naked."
You might assume that she has a lawsuit on her hands against the store, but what is most surprising about all of this is that in 37 states, it is totally legal. According to legal news site Dopplr, the use of a monitoring system in fitting rooms is only prohibited in 13 states. In the other states, per Dopplr, the law says that the use surveillance in dressing rooms must be "done as loss prevention only" and "any motive other than this is illegal and would cause the store to be fined heavily."
However, California, where Nallely experienced this, is one of the 13 states where it is illegal to film changing rooms, but she doesn't know if the camera she saw was facing her or if there even was one in there - employees of clothing stores have previously said that those domes are sometimes used as deterrents and there isn't actually a camera behind them.
Of course, many commenters were deeply disturbed by what Valencia shared, with one writing, "That's why I don't try on things in stores anymore," and another saying, "That is so scary and who knows how many people changed and it went unnoticed."
Definitely something to be mindful of the next time you find yourself in a fitting room.