Shocking footage has emerged on social media of women being secretly filmed at two of the peninsula’s most popular beaches.

The most recent footage was uploaded to YouTube this week of women at Shelly Beach under the tagline “Sexy Girls”.

All of the women filmed were in swimwear, but one of them was shown topless.

While some stills have been included here to illustrate the footage, much of it is too graphic to show and included close-ups of women’s cleavages and buttocks.

media_camera Shelly Beach is a hugely popular beach, rated as the best beach in NSW by a Tripadvisor survey this year. Picture: Virginia Young

YouTube administrators removed the offending footage two days after it was posted.

A similar video, filmed at Dee Why Beach under the same YouTube account, had more than 400,000 hits and was removed this morning after the Manly Daily contacted YouTube.

None of the victims seem to be aware they are being filmed.

A spokesman for YouTube said: “YouTube has Community Guidelines outlining what content is allowed on the site, and we review and remove flagged videos against those policies. Our Guidelines prohibit sexually explicit content.”

While the filming itself may not be a crime, critics and legal experts says it is a gross invasion of privacy.

Macquarie University’s Professor Catharine Lumby, who specialises in social ethics, slammed the person responsible for uploading the footage, describing it as “creepy and pervy.”

“If it was me (filmed) I would be horrified,” she said.

media_camera Professor Catharine Lumby has slammed the footage.

“It’s creepy, it makes women feel uncomfortable and I think it makes many men feel uncomfortable. It’s an abusive thing to do.”

Professor Lumby urged users to demand the removal of this sort of material.

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A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice suggested the cameraman could be charged under the Crimes Act with filming a person’s private parts.

Lawyer Mitchell Cavanagh, from Sydney Criminal Lawyers, said the confronting footage was “not likely” to lead to a criminal charge.

Mr Cavanagh said while there were laws in NSW relating to the filming of a person’s private parts or engaged in a private act, specific legislation meant this likely did not relate to this footage.

“Both offences require proof that a reasonable person wouldn’t believe it was possible to be filmed and that couldn’t apply to a situation of a person on a public beach.”