A Google Glass user has warned others not to wear the devices in public, after being hauled out of a US cinema by law enforcers who claimed he was using the device to illegally record a movie.
The unnamed Google Glass user visited a cinema with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, while wearing the device. He was then asked to step outside an hour into a showing of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit by a law enforcement officer.
He was accused of using the device to illegally record the film, but maintains he did not have Glass switched on in the cinema.
I guess until people get more familiar with Google Glass and understand what they are, one should not wear them to the movies.
"Because I don't want Glass to distract me during the movie, I turn them off (but since my prescription lenses are on the frame, I still wear them," he told tech blog The Gadgeteer.
The accused said he was held for several hours by representatives from the US Department of Homeland Security before being released without charge.
"I kept telling them I wasn't recording anything my Glass was off, [but] they insisted they saw it on," he wrote.
Despite repeated attempts by the unnamed man to get the attending officers to check the device themselves, he claims they only did this after questioning him.
"Eventually, after a long time somebody came with a laptop and a USB cable at which point he told me it was my last chance to come clean. I repeated for the hundredth time there is nothing to come clean about and this is a big misunderstanding," he said.
"So the...guy finally connected my Glass to the computer, downloaded all my personal photos and started going through them one by one.
"Then they went through my phone, and five minutes later they concluded I had done nothing wrong," he added.
When he complained, a representative from the Movie Association blamed the high rates of piracy at the theatre he visited and gave him two free passes to see the film again.
"Considering it was 11.27pm when this happened, and the movie started at 7.45, I guess the three and a half hours of my time and the scare my wife went through is worth about 30 bucks in the eyes of the Movie Association and the federal militia," he wrote.
"I guess until people get more familiar with Google Glass and understand what they are, one should not wear them to the movies."
In a statement to US newspaper the Columbus Dispatch, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the incident.
"On Jan. 18, special agents with ICE's Homeland Security Investigations and local authorities briefly interviewed a man suspected of using an electronic recording device to record a film at an AMC Theatre in Columbus," the statement reads.
"The man, who voluntarily answered questions, confirmed to authorities that the suspected recording devices was also a pair of prescription eye glasses in which the recording function had been inactive. No further action was taken."
This isn't the first time wearing Google Glass has landed someone in hot water, as there have been numerous reports of a similar nature in recent months.
For example, a restaurant in Seattle banned the device because of concerns about its recording capabilities, while the UK Department for Transport reportedly has too because of fears it might distract people when they're behind the wheel.
