Saudi Arabian police arrested a hotel worker who filmed himself having breakfast with a female colleague.

The worker, an Egyptian national, filmed himself and a co-worker laughing and joking as they ate breakfast while seated at a wooden desk. At the end of the video, the woman – who is wearing a niqab – puts a morsel in the man’s mouth.

The video was uploaded to social media and quickly went viral across Saudi Arabia, where more than four in every 10 citizens is active on Twitter.

Saudi authorities quickly mobilised and announced that they had arrested “an expatriate in Jeddah” over the “offensive video”.

Men and women are not allowed to sit or work together in most Saudi restaurants and workplaces, and single women must be accompanied by  male guardian when doing even the most mundane of tasks. 

The arrest is the latest development in Saudi Arabia’s troubling track record of gender inequality, which has seen women arrested for dancing, wearing skirts or even driving, which has now been made legal.