Beware! Creeps might just be recording you through AI smart glasses without consent

Imagine strolling down a sunny beach or hitting the gym, feeling carefree, when suddenly a conversation with a stranger turns into your worst online nightmare.

Smart glasses have entered the market in all designs, including sleek wearables from big tech like Meta and Google, laced with AI technology, and are buzzing back as the next big thing.

What are Smart Glasses?

Smart glasses entered the trend with Google Glass in 2014, priced around £1,000 in the UK. Many like these let people click photos, record videos, play music, or get directions, all hands-free, blending into everyday sunglasses so seamlessly you might not spot them.

Creeps are secretly using these glasses to record videos!

Smart glasses have tiny built-in cameras which are fueling a creepy trend where guys film women rejecting them, post first-person clips on TikTok, and rack up viral views with nasty comments.

Smart glasses but infringement of privacy?

These glasses entered the market in 2014 but immediately faced backlash over privacy, and resultantly, bars and restaurants banned them, and sales wrapped up by 2015.

But now, they're sleeker and stealthier. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, launched in 2021, have sold about two million pairs since early last year, packing cameras for apps, music, and maps. Google plans AI-powered ones this year.

According to Meta, their glasses feature "an LED light that activates whenever someone captures content, so it's clear to others that the device is recording," plus tamper detection to stop light-blocking. Yet, BBC investigations confirmed online hacks can disable or hide this light during recording.

Woman’s secretly smart-glass-recorded video goes viral

A woman named Oonagh was sunbathing in Brighton last June when a man in sunglasses asked her name, origin, and number. She said no, citing her boyfriend.

Weeks later, a TikTok video from his glasses' view hit a million views, tens of thousands of likes, and hundreds of sexually explicit, derogatory comments exposing her Brighton home.

"I had no idea it was happening to me, I didn't consent to that being posted, I didn't consent to being secretly filmed," Oonagh said to BBC. "It really freaked me out — it made me feel afraid to go out in public." She felt a "panicked feeling" as it spiraled out of control.

Expert weighs in!

"It's so obvious that these types of glasses are going to be used by perpetrators, or as part of harmful sexual behaviour, in ways that make women feel less safe, feel humiliated," said Rebecca Hitchen from the End Violence Against Women Coalition to the BBC. "It absolutely suggests troubling and concerning attitudes towards women and girls."

Meta told BBC it'll "continually review opportunities to enhance our AI glasses." A Home Office spokesperson called violence against women a "national emergency," promising tech-abuse fixes in the upcoming VAWG Strategy.