Cologne Police Investigate Robot Used to Grope Teen Girl

Police in Cologne, Germany, are investigating an incident in which a humanoid robot touched a 16-year-old girl's buttocks and made sexually suggestive gestures toward her, according to The Guardian. Two teenage males allegedly controlled the robot during the encounter, the Guardian reported, citing photos Cologne police provided showing the machine seized as evidence on Oct. 11.

What happened in Cologne?

Cologne police seized the robot as evidence after the Oct. 11 incident, according to the photo caption cited by The Guardian. The outlet reported the robot was used to touch the teenager and make sexually suggestive gestures toward her, and that two teenage males were controlling the device at the time.

How does this fit a wider pattern?

The Cologne case follows what The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi calls a pattern: new technology, she writes, gets used to harass girls and women almost as soon as it reaches the public. Her column cites three prior examples. Smartglasses made by Meta have been used by so-called "manfluencers" who film themselves approaching women in public and post the footage to TikTok, often without the women's knowledge until strangers identify and harass them, according to the column. License-plate tracking technology made by Flock has been misused by law enforcement officers to track the locations of former partners or women they were interested in, the column says. And AI image generators have been used to produce deepfake pornography targeting women and girls.

What did Meta do about its smartglasses?

Meta has issued some bans and made privacy updates in response to the harassment videos, according to the Guardian column, but the piece says the company has not moved to fix the underlying problem. At Meta's Connect 2026 keynote, CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not address or apologize to women affected by the recordings, the column states.

What do the numbers show?

A 2023 report cited in the column found that deepfake pornography made up 98% of all deepfake videos online, and that 99% of those videos depicted women. The figures, the column argues, show the harassment pattern extends well beyond any single device or app.

By the numbers

• 98% of deepfake videos online in the 2023 report were pornographic.
• 99% of those deepfake videos depicted women, according to the same report.

What happens next for the Cologne case?

The Guardian column does not report an update on charges or the status of the two teenage males allegedly controlling the robot. Cologne police have not released additional details beyond the seized-evidence photo cited in the report. Readers following the case can track developments through the originating Guardian column, which is credited with first surfacing the incident alongside the broader pattern of tech-enabled harassment of women.

The case adds a physical robotics dimension to a set of harassment complaints that, until now, have centered on wearable cameras, vehicle-tracking databases, and AI image tools, according to the column's reporting.