Recently, a routine public interaction took a chilling digital turn for one unsuspecting woman. After politely declining a stranger, she had no idea she was being recorded by a man wearing Meta smart glasses. The true shock came later when she stumbled upon the footage online, repackaged by the filmer as a 'successful pick-up'.
In early December last year, Beth Knight, then 17, found herself stuck at London's Waterloo station following a missed train. With a 40-minute wait ahead of her, she had barely settled onto a bench when a man in his mid-20s came over and initiated a chat.
'He said: 'I find you attractive, so I wanted to say hello',' Beth notes. She replied that she had a boyfriend.
@bethicaa_ Replying to @Popspep I’m the girl in the video - he doesn’t go by that username anymore but 🤷♀️ #metaglasses #creep #london #fyp #awareness
♬ original sound - Beth 🐞
That claim was entirely genuine: Beth had actually travelled to London to trade Christmas presents with her partner. Even so, the man behind the dark-rimmed glasses continued asking personal questions about where she lived, what she did for a living, what she was doing and whether he could have her Instagram handle.
Hoping to de-escalate the encounter, Beth agreed to type her Instagram handle directly into his handset.
'I didn't want to become a statistic,' she explains of the encounter. 'I wanted him to walk away rather than me having to leave the situation because I thought that would be more dangerous.'
Although he walked off as soon as he had her contact details, the brief encounter left Beth deeply unnerved. It was only when recounting the story to her boyfriend and group of friends that the realisation hit her: 'I thought "I bet he filmed me on those glasses"'.
The Explosive Growth and Hidden Dangers of Wearable Tech
Once reminiscent of a James Bond movie, Meta's smart glasses—spectacles with built-in cameras linked to a smartphone app—have rapidly hit the mainstream. Meta entered the smart-glasses market with Ray-Ban Stories in 2021 before later launching its Ray-Ban Meta line with EssilorLuxottica. Sales of its AI-powered glasses with EssilorLuxottica soared, with more than seven million AI glasses sold in 2025, driven by Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta.
'They're some of the fastest-growing consumer electronics in history,' Zuckerberg declared earlier this year. Though Meta claims the glasses help users 'stay in the moment, from listening to music to live translation or hands-free calls', their rise has sparked fierce privacy concerns, with some critics and campaigners nicknaming them 'pervert glasses' over fears wearers can clandestinely record people at gyms, cash machines or playgrounds.
Beyond public surveillance worries, the devices also trigger serious data privacy questions. While footage can remain on the glasses until it is imported, using certain AI features can send captured material to Meta for processing.
Some footage submitted to Meta's AI systems has also been used for training and, in some cases, reviewed by human contractors. Illustrating the stark extent of this exposure, two Kenyan contractors told Swedish media earlier this year that they had reviewed sensitive footage captured by the glasses, including scenes involving people using the toilet and having sex.
Unwittingly Filmed and Weaponised Online for Profit
Later, Beth found a TikTok video about a woman secretly filmed via smart glasses. Panicking, she searched captions such as 'picking up girls London' and 'Meta glasses' until her stomach dropped.
One clip featured the same man talking to another woman at Waterloo. Though her own footage was not online yet, she was filled with dread: 'I wondered 'Will he post a video of me?' and 'If he does, when will he post it?''
The man's account had about 100,000 followers and 261 clips of him chatting up women to promote his online pick-up course.
'I felt completely powerless,' Beth notes. 'He had taken a video of me without my permission or knowledge and I had no control over the situation.'
Weeks passed with no contact or footage posted until Beth's mother asked about the Waterloo incident on Christmas Day. Checking the TikTok account, Beth felt her chest tighten as she saw her secretly recorded conversation posted as promotional material for his courses and framed as a 'successful' pick-up.
Beth spotted that he had edited out her mention of college, leaving viewers with the impression that she was between 16 and 18.
'He knew that I could have been underage. He fully was aware of that and chose to edit it out,' she states. 'I was angry. It was like pure rage because he was exploiting my image to sell his courses. I almost felt like I was watching someone else, seeing myself in such a state of discomfort, such a state of panic,' she notes.
The Fightback Against Exploitative Surveillance
Beth messaged the account demanding removal but was ignored and blocked after leaving a comment; the clip later vanished, though it remains unclear who removed it. Her mother reported the incident to the British Transport Police, but Beth and her family ultimately decided not to proceed with the case, asking for the report to remain on file because of the stress of her A-levels.
'I was under a lot of stress with my A-levels, so we decided we couldn't go through with that at that time for my mental health,' Beth explains. 'His entire Instagram and TikTok were just videos of him doing the same to other women. Sometimes they were drunk. Sometimes they were even more visibly uncomfortable than I was. You could see how scared they were.'
@abcnewsaus Beth Knight was 17 when she was approached by a man wearing Meta glasses and filmed without her consent at London's busy Waterloo station. A few days later, she found her encounter with the man posted to social media. #abc730 #MetaGlasses #SocialMedia
♬ original sound - ABC News Australia - ABC News Australia
Beth shared her own TikTok explaining the ordeal, receiving messages from other women who had similarly been filmed via Meta glasses. 'It wasn't an isolated incident,' she notes.
Growing concerns are mounting over smart glasses, the privacy threats they introduce and their potential role in harassment of women. The advocacy group Stop Smart Glasses is calling for restrictions on the sale, promotion and public use of smart glasses, citing privacy and safety concerns—fears amplified as sexual offences recorded on London's Tube network reached a five-year high in December 2025.
