A man wearing Google Glass at a movie theater in Ohio was questioned by federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security.
The man – identified by the Washington Post as Tiberius Ungurenau – sent an incident report to Gadgeteer, saying he went to a movie theater in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday to see a movie with his wife. He said he had the device turned off, but continued to wear it because it was fitted with his regular (corrective/optical) glasses.
The Washington Post reported that the agents were part of the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, which is responsible for international piracy issues, in cooperation with the film industry. MPAA officials who were already at the theater contacted authorities when they noticed someone in the theater with a recording device.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed the incident to the newspaper on Tuesday, saying that the man who was found with the device willingly answered questions and confirmed that he was wearing the device for visual reasons and not for recording purposes, so no further action was taken.
Initially, in his report, Ungurenau mentioned FBI agents, however, after his own investigation, he determined that they were people from the Department of Homeland Security, which, as mentioned above, was later confirmed.
Describing the incident, the victim states that, about an hour after the movie (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) started, a man approached him, showed him a sign with "some kind of shield on it," pulled Google Glass from his head, and told him to follow him outside immediately.
"It was quite embarrassing, and there were about 5-10 police officers and mall security guards outside the theater. Since I couldn't hold back his name in the theater, I asked to see his badge again, asked what the problem was, and asked for my Glass back." He adds that the answer was that they belonged to a federal agency and he was caught illegally recording the film.
After 20-30 minutes outside the cinema, the man and his wife were taken to two separate rooms in the mall. There followed a period of time during which the agents told him that he had not been arrested and that it was a “voluntary interview” but that if he chose not to cooperate “bad things could happen to him.”.
He said he repeatedly told them he wasn't recording anything, and offered to prove it, but was not allowed to touch the device "for fear of erasing the data." He was also asked where he found the device, saying he had applied multiple times to be selected for the company's "explorer program," which he was eventually accepted into.
Then someone entered the room with a laptop and a USB cable, who connected the device in question to the computer, looking at its contents. A search of his phone followed, and "five minutes later they concluded that I had done nothing wrong.".
According to Ungurenau, at one point a man who introduced himself as Bob Hope entered the room, said he was from the “Movie Association” (a reference to the Motion Picture Association of America, MPAA) and that they had a problem with piracy at the particular theater and with the particular film. In the end, he offered him free tickets “so he could see the film again,” apologized for the incident, and said that the original call had been made by the theater to him, so he in turn notified the authorities.
"I think that until people get used to Google Glass and understand what it is, it's best not to wear it to the cinema," the sufferer concludes.
Source: naftemporiki.gr
