Smart glasses can provide life changing accessibility for people who are blind or have low vision, but those benefits should never shield technology companies from legitimate scrutiny. Accessibility and privacy do not have to compete. As AI enabled wearables become more common, we need policies that accommodate disability-related needs, protect privacy and consent, establish reasonable boundaries, and hold companies accountable for how their technology is designed.

Smart glasses and AI-enabled wearables are entering schools faster than many policies can keep up. Cameras, microphones, AI, and cloud processing can now be hidden inside everyday eyewear and accessories, creating new questions around privacy, consent, accessibility, safety, and misuse. We created this free, adaptable draft policy to help schools establish clear, balanced expectations before an incident forces them to react.

Smart glasses present schools with a complicated challenge. The same camera-equipped eyewear that raises legitimate concerns about privacy, consent, recording, and academic integrity may also help a visually impaired student read a worksheet, identify an object, or understand their surroundings. As schools develop smart glasses policies, we need to distinguish between misuse and meaningful accessibility, because sometimes the risk is also the accommodation.