As conerns grow over AI smart glasses, police officers are investigating videos allegedly showing members of the public being secretly filmed without their knowledge by a TikTok creator
Police are investigating videos allegedly showing members of the public being secretly filmed using Meta smart glasses.
Scott Margerison is being investigated after footage posted online appeared to show members of the public, shop workers and ferry staff being recorded without their knowledge during a road trip around Scotland. Police Scotland said it had received complaints and was assessing videos posted by the 42-year-old, from Rochdale, to establish whether any criminal offences had been committed.
A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: “We are aware of the videos posted online and are assessing the content.” Scott, who posts on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube under the alias E Dobbin, uploaded a series of clips filmed while travelling across Scotland in late June and early July.
Videos appeared to show him approaching members of the public while wearing Meta’s smart glasses, including confronting a Sikh shopkeeper, making sexualised comments about young women and filming aboard a CalMac ferry. One video showed him speaking to a UK-born Sikh shopkeeper of Indian heritage on Skye, where he discussed what he described as “forced” diversity in Europe before referring to the Kalergi Plan – the far-right conspiracy theory about a plot to “breed out the white race”.
The woman, who was running the shop with help from her teenage daughter, politely suggested his comments were “slightly derogatory”. After leaving, Scott described her as “condescending” in his video commentary and complained that “they don’t understand”.
The woman, who was born in London and has lived in Skye for 20 years, told BBC Scotland News he began the conversation by asking “what are you doing here?” but edited that exchange out of the version later posted online. She said the encounter with Scott, who is heavily built and well over 6ft tall, was “100% intimidating” and that she cried after a friend told her a secretly filmed video of the interaction had been uploaded to TikTok.
She said: “You’re made to feel very small when you see a video like this. And it’s sad because everyone in the local community is really nice. This was really upsetting.”
In another video, Scott made sexualised comments about two teenagers after spotting them while boarding a CalMac ferry before putting on his Meta glasses, getting out of his van and speaking to the girls and their parents, apparently without their knowledge they were being filmed. Whether filming someone using AI smart glasses is lawful depends on the circumstances.
People generally have only a limited expectation of privacy when they are in a public place. However, filming may be unlawful if it amounts to harassment or stalking, or if the behaviour is considered likely to cause fear or alarm. Someone who is recorded may also have grounds for a civil claim where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as in a hospital treatment area or a changing room.
If recordings are made as part of a business, including content produced to generate income through social media, data protection laws may also apply. The case comes amid growing concern over the use AI smart glasses, which contain discreet cameras capable of recording video without people necessarily realising they are being filmed.
One woman previously told the BBC that after asking for a secretly recorded video of herself to be removed, she was told doing so was “a paid service”. A campaign group previously told HuffPost: “Meta and Rayban’s new AI glasses can be used to secretly record women and young people for sexual reasons. Simply put, that’s abuse. Meta has spent years tracking us online. Now it wants to track us in the real world too.”
Singer Lorde also criticised the glasses while performing, telling fans: “Increasingly, in our world, it gets harder and harder to know what is real. Can I just say, for the record, f**k the glasses. Don’t get the glasses. Not sexy.”