Potsdam to ban smart glasses at pools and saunas

The city of Potsdam, Brandenburg, has banned people from wearing smart glasses with built-in cameras and microphones when visiting swimming pools and saunas. 

Smart glasses banned at swimming pools

The city of Potsdam has announced that it will include a ban on smart glasses in its swimming pool regulations. The regulation already bans photography and video in swimming pools and saunas; this will simply be extended to include images and videos captured with smart glasses.

“These devices enable the unsuspected production of image and video recordings, without people who are being recorded being able to immediately recognise they are being recorded,” a proposal submitted by the Greens/Volt faction read, according to an rbb report.

“There is an increasing number of recordings circulating on social media, without the knowledge of the people who have been captured on film."

ZDF doc reveals trend of filming women with smart glasses

The new regulation in Potsdam comes a few weeks after a ZDF documentary explored a growing trend in Germany: men wearing smart glasses and discreetly filming while they engage women in conversation in public spaces, namely swimming pools and bars, and then uploading the footage to social media or porn streaming sites. 

These videos are often filmed by self-proclaimed “dating coaches” and “pick-up artists” and shared with the hashtag “rizz”, short for “charisma”. While many models of smart glasses have a light on the frame that blinks during recording, ZDF found that some men intentionally cover it.

Some upload tutorials on how to cover the blinking light so that other men can covertly film unassuming women and learn how to be “charismatic”.