A new floor lamp by Panasonic has sparked privacy concerns due to its 'secret' security camera which can record a room discretely.

The HomeHawk FLOOR lamp has a small camera with numerous features: a 140-degree wide-angle lens, full HD and night recording modes, motion sensor technology and the ability to remotely view footage in live time through a mobile app.

Panasonic is marketing the floor lamp as a home monitoring camera.

The floor lamp currently doesn't support cloud storage, meaning that footage is saved to a MicroSD card, but that hasn't dampened fears from an online tech magazine that the lamp could be abused as a spy camera in addition to its use as a home security system.

"Think about where these things could be placed, spying on us without us knowing it: Doctor's offices, rental houses, public bathrooms, the living rooms or bedrooms of our significant others, hotel rooms," wrote Kim Wetzel with Digital Trends. "If home surveillance technology is making its way into a benign floor lamp, what's next? A spying couch?"