WATCH: A view royal man was shocked when he scanned a QR code on a sign in front of outdoor exercise equipment at view royal park and instead of giving him information on the equipment he was sent to a Japanese porn site. Luisa Alvarez explains.
Keith Davies is a View Royal Park regular with his dog Molly but last week when he was here he discovered something completely out of place. He was using the outdoor exercise equipment and noticed the sign had a Quick response code.
“They have a website address there and a QR code so I thought I’m at the park not on my computer so I just thought I’d flash it up and see what it is,” said Davies.
The QR code should have taken him to the companies website with more information on the equipment but instead, when he scanned it he was directed to a Japanese porn site.
“I shut it down and did it again and yea same site and then I did it again but yeah not at all what I expected at a playground,” said Davies.
He said he was concerned because of its right next to a children’s park.
“One of these days some kid is going to hold up their QR reader they are becoming much more popular if they haven’t already,” said Davies.
It also works by simply taking a picture of it. The link that pops up has the company name Norwell as the header and takes you to the same site.
CHEK News reached out to Norwell Outdoor equipment for comment but did not hear back. It is still unclear how it happened and how many other signs have been affected.
View Royal Mayor David Screech says the signs have nothing to do with the town since they are supplied by the manufacturer of the exercise equipment.
“I’m quite sure when it was all installed which was a couple of years ago that they would have run tests and everything was fine but unfortunately in this day and age it seems more and more often sites are hacked into and these things happen,” said Screech.
The sign has now been removed and the company notified but Mayor Screech says it will be reinstalled once they’ve gotten reassurance that the problem has been fixed.
Luisa Alvarez
