A routine night out took a disturbing turn for Courtney McAnuff when she discovered that the man she was dating had secretly recorded their time together and shared the footage online. Her experience highlights growing concerns over smart glasses, which let wearers capture photos and video from their own perspective without always being obvious.
As the technology becomes more common, its use on dates is raising fresh questions about privacy, consent and personal boundaries.
A Date Turns Into a Secret Recording
Courtney McAnuff stepped back into the dating scene in the summer of 2024 following the end of a year-long relationship, meeting up with a potential match for drinks.
They connected at a midtown Manhattan bar, where he showed up wearing a low-slung baseball cap and dark-framed specs, according to her account. While they chatted about living in New York and past romances, he noted that his eyewear was made by Meta and Ray-Ban.
'I wasn't familiar with them,' McAnuff, a 28-year-old project manager who now lives in Toronto, tells WIRED. It marked her initial encounter with the smart specs, which can capture photos and footage directly from the wearer's perspective.
He allowed her to test them out and displayed a couple of prior clips he had recorded, she notes. 'That was it. We stopped talking about it after that. I figured that was the end of the use.'
The following day, McAnuff spotted a tag on her Instagram story notification. To her shock, the post contained video clips of their time at the bar and their subway ride up to a basketball match, framing her from above while seated across from him with his drink in hand.
'I felt super violated,' McAnuff says. 'Like, what if I don't want everyone knowing what I'm up to? He felt so free to film me and post it. There was no conversation about it.'
Why Smart Glasses Are Raising Dating Fears
Meta sold more than seven million pairs of its Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2025, as the devices have become increasingly common in public spaces, partly driven by pranksters chasing viral fame who sometimes record people at work. The phenomenon has also spread to pickup artists approaching women and has earned the hardware the nickname 'creep glasses'.
The AI-powered eyewear from Meta has become a recurring concern among singles, particularly women, as people share growing unease about being covertly filmed on dates.
'Ban those glasses completely,' posted a young woman on Bluesky in August, writing that her date 'leaned over to show me pictures he took of me I had no idea he was taking.'
One TikToker claimed in a video after a date that she 'immediately felt uncomfortable', questioning why people are 'so comfortable videoing everything. It's a terrible way to portray yourself, wearing a fucking camera on your face and you're sitting in my face.'
@sauls2026 Sitting there looking like 🤓
♬ original sound - Anna
Reddit users debated the ethics behind the trend in August, discussing whether walking away from a date is appropriate if someone turns up wearing the specs. Elsewhere on the platform, one user shared that they cut off contact with a man after discovering he had kept the hardware on throughout their outing.
'I didn't notice until toward the end of the night. I kissed him while he was wearing the glasses,' they said.
Meanwhile, Seoul police began investigating a man in July who was accused of secretly recording four women he dated and later uploading footage to social media, according to The Korea Herald.
Smart Glasses Turn Trust Into a Privacy Problem
While phones offer a clear moment to object, smart glasses make recording less obvious. Despite Meta using LED indicators to signal active cameras, post-date privacy remains the core issue for victims like McAnuff: 'He didn't ask if I wanted to be recorded... now he has this video file of me forever.'
With a 2025 YouGov survey revealing 94 per cent of adults rank trust as 'very important' in relationships, covert recording undermines romantic connection. Describing men as 'eternal optimizers' who review 'game tape' to 'learn from mistakes,' psychologist Gary Lewandowski warns some use specs to 'build a case instead of a connection,' turning dates into 'fact gathering.'
Dating Consent Is Becoming a Tech Issue
The trend has renewed consent debates. Dateable cohost Yue Xu calls the practice a 'disturbing intrusion' threatening a future 'without anonymity.'
Privacy concerns are escalating. Meta and EssilorLuxottica face a class-action lawsuit over unauthorised data capture, prompting Meta to disable recording for thousands who tampered with notification lights.
While Meta insists tampering stops cameras and claims it fights abuse—with Instagram head Adam Mosseri stating, 'We're trying to fight that every way we can'—global pushback grows.
A pending California bill seeks strict rules on wearable recording indicators, while Australia's eSafety Commissioner urges tech firms to automatically blur faces to combat image-based abuse.
The Date Ends, But the Footage Remains
Upon discovering the unauthorised video, McAnuff confronted her date by text; he apologised but dismissed the severity, and they have not met since. For her and others, Meta's smart glasses represent an invisible privacy threat.
'Being in each other's physical space is such a beautiful experience in itself. We don't need to have gadgets around,' McAnuff says. 'I don't think that every moment needs to be captured.'
