AI glasses secretly filmed Copenhagen woman and posted her online

Twenty-five-year-old Mathilde was secretly filmed by a man wearing Meta AI glasses while he flirted with her on a Copenhagen street, DR reports. Three weeks later, a video of the encounter appeared on several social media platforms without her consent.

The video shows the man complimenting Mathilde, asking for her phone number and receiving it. It had attracted nearly 300,000 views after seven hours, she said, and friends contacted her after seeing it.

“I was simply completely shocked,” Mathilde told DR. “Looking back, I am mostly angry about it.”

The man was a so-called pickup artist, typically a man who shares advice on how to attract women and posts videos of such encounters. Mathilde said she did not notice the glasses and found it distressing that she had been recorded without knowing.

“I would probably have behaved completely differently if I had known I was being filmed. It is a violation of my privacy,” she said.

The glasses, which cost about 3,500 Danish kroner in Denmark, include a camera and built-in artificial intelligence. They have also been dubbed “pervert glasses” after being used to film people, particularly women, without their knowledge and post the footage online without consent.

Mathilde asked the man to remove the video, but he refused. She then contacted the police for help. According to Mathilde, police said the video did not contain sensitive personal information and that she could not report the man. DR has asked Copenhagen Police for comment but had not received a response.

“It cannot be right that there are videos of me online that I do not want there,” Mathilde said. She called for clearer legislation requiring people to prove that they have consent before publishing footage of someone.

The debate over the glasses has intensified in recent weeks. The Danish Data Protection Agency and the Consumer Council Think have criticised them over privacy concerns. A promotional campaign for Meta’s AI glasses in Euroman and Eurowoman was also stopped last week after strong criticism in the comments. Influencers Sus Wilkins and Cecilie Haugaard later deleted their promotional posts on Instagram, while Synoptik was also criticised for advertising the product.

Several parties in the Danish parliament want the use of AI glasses in public spaces restricted or banned. The Red-Green Alliance supports a complete ban on Meta glasses.

“It is a problem that people do not know whether they are being recorded when they move around in public, because they do not expect there to be a camera in the glasses,” said Eva Flyvholm, the party’s legal affairs spokesperson.

Justice Minister Nicolai Wammen said in a written comment to DR that the government was aware that technological developments were creating new challenges. He called it “deeply reprehensible” to record conversations and publish videos without people’s knowledge, and said he would invite the Consumer Council to discuss how people could best be protected.