Japan: Stalker found Japanese singer through 'reflection in her eyes'

According to recent police reports, a Japanese man was accused of stalking and sexually assaulting a young pop star. The accused later informed police how he figured out the exact train station, where she was present at the time she clicked the image. He claimed to have found her location through the reflection of her surroundings in her eyes in a selfie she posted online.

Incident raises serious debates over cyberstalking

The police stated that the 26-year-old man waited at the station until he saw the pop star and followed her to her house. The case has raised serious discussions over the threat of cyberstalking. Hibiki Sato, the suspect has been accused of following the woman from the train station to her house on the night of September 1, and later molesting her.

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Soon after the accused was arrested, he revealed his obsession for the pop singer, who was also described as a 21-year-old "Japanese idol" by the local media channels. Police reports revealed how the suspect zoomed the image of her eyes, and located her using Google Street View.

Read: Varun Dhawan's Stalker Threatens To Kill His Girlfriend Natasha Dalal, Complaint Filed

Studied even the minutest details: Police

The police also reported the fact that the man was very well aware of the floor she lived on by studying the details of the videos she posted online, carefully looking at her flat details such as the placement of curtains and the direction of natural light coming through the window.

The case raises questions about the risks unwittingly taken by social media users who post high definition pictures online documenting their lives. Eliot Higgins, the founder of investigations site Bellingcat said that higher quality images allow for more details of the surroundings to be identified that can help with geolocation, and the more reference imagery there is from services like Google Street View, the higher chance there is of finding a location. 

He also added that even the tiniest details in a picture can help one locate where it was taken and can reveal a lot of information about the individual in it. 

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