A Seattle Police Department officer, Adam Sun, is on administrative leave after using a pair of AI smart glasses to record a promotional video for a Chinese company, Rokid Global. The film, taken from Sun’s POV while wearing the glasses, showed scenes inside of a police precinct, at a police investigation, in and around the department’s weapons lockers, and inside Sun’s police car while he’s driving, among other locations. The footage is frenetic and Sun hypes the glasses throughout. At one point, Sun daps a man holding a tiny goat.

Rokid posted the video next to other promotional videos on its Facebook page and other social media sites earlier this month. Since then, the post has been removed, and I was unable to locate another version of it online; my description is based on my own recollection from multiple viewings. On September 10, someone filed a complaint against Sun with the city’s Office of Police Accountability and SPD put him on administrative leave—a reaction that shows SPD considers the incident serious.

Security experts have identified specific concerns about Chinese smart glasses (as well as those produced in the US by companies like Meta.) If a police officer in the US received money to promote a Chinese company, that could raise additional concerns. China, politically a US adversary, heavily surveils its citizens in what has been described as a surveillance and digital “police state.”