Milan transport workers swapped upskirt photos of women passengers via surveillance cameras

Discovery on tram 15

On Saturday 13 June, a 26-year-old freelance producer, travelling under the pseudonym Valentina, took tram 15 from Duomo to Rozzano in Milan. She stood behind a man wearing an ATM uniform who was scrolling a WhatsApp group chat named "Ticinese Staff". Valentina saw an enlarged image of a woman's buttocks taken from a surveillance camera, captioned "È il mio dolce per voi" ("It's my sweet for you"). She then noticed the group's photo gallery contained other similar images of women's bodies, all taken from the tram's onboard cameras without consent.

“The ATM worker went in and out of the chat. I could not read earlier messages, but at one point he opened the group's photo gallery. There I noticed that among the many media shared, there were other images taken from the surveillance cameras.”

The chat group and its members

The WhatsApp group "Ticinese Staff" had at least seven participants, all men, and is believed to refer to the ATM depot in the Porta Ticinese area. Screenshots posted by Valentina on social media show a chat stream with manipulated camera stills – legs, faces, breasts and thighs – accompanied by explicit and degrading comments. The writer and activist Carlotta Vagnoli amplified the story on Instagram, calling it "yet another chat where the bodies of unwitting women are exchanged and commented on with violence and sexism among colleagues".

Company and political response

ATM confirmed the incident and stated it acted the same Saturday evening, contacting Valentina and launching an internal investigation. In a company note, ATM said: "We will shed full light on the episode, protect our customers, and the thousands of correct employees who work every day serving the city. We firmly believe in respect as a founding and non-negotiable value and we will act in every appropriate forum." Mayor Giuseppe Sala urged the company to be "incisive in analysis and harsh in measures", adding that if crimes are confirmed, "those responsible must be put in a position where they cannot cause further harm". Beatrice Uguccioni, head of the Democratic Party group at Palazzo Marino, described the chats as "intolerable and disconcerting" and demanded to know the outcome of the inquiry and any sanctions.

“ATM must shed light but must also intervene. If those responsible are identified, there should be no interventions that put them back in a position to cause harm.”

Legal and privacy fallout

ATM filed a formal complaint with the local police and announced it would also report the matter to the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante della Privacy). The police will forward the complaint to the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, which will evaluate possible charges, such as abusive access to a computer system. The internal investigation is focusing on whether images from the fleet's security cameras were improperly accessed and distributed.

“We have activated ourselves immediately to ascertain the facts and verify the correct use of company tools.”

The passenger's experience

Valentina told Corriere della Sera that the driver appeared "quite pleased" while handling the images and was simultaneously chatting with relatives, who addressed him as "zio" (uncle). She stressed that the shock stemmed not only from the sexism but from the betrayal of trust: "Any woman or girl travelling alone on public transport at night seeks protection from workers, perhaps wanting a seat near the driver, reassured that there are surveillance cameras to make the place safe. In reality, you then discover that the same workers use those cameras to spread intimate images." She added that downplaying the incident as mere "pranks" only deepens the harm.