The Growing Privacy Concerns Around Smart Glasses - Three Case Studies
- The White Hatter
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Back in August, we wrote about “smart glasses” and the challenges they pose to safety, security, and, most importantly, privacy. (1) At the time, many of our concerns were hypothetical. Today, they are becoming reality.
Recent headlines have confirmed what we predicted. In one case, a customer realized her beautician was wearing smart glasses capable of recording during a Brazilian waxing appointment. (2) In another, a university issued a warning to students after reports surfaced of a man using smart glasses to secretly record women on campus. (3) These incidents underscore how quickly new technology can cross ethical and legal boundaries, often before the public has time to understand what it even is.
Smart glasses, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban models, combine wearable fashion with powerful recording and AI driven features. They can capture video, take photos, and even livestream content to platforms like Facebook and Instagram, all through a simple voice command or subtle gesture. Unlike a smartphone or a body camera, there’s no obvious indicator that someone is recording, which blurs the line between casual use and covert surveillance.
While marketed as lifestyle accessories, these devices represent a new frontier in personal data collection. Every interaction, conversation, and facial expression can potentially be recorded, stored, and analyzed. In fact, meta has publicly announced that they are using the data collected from their smart glasses to train their AI. (4) For most users, this capability may seem harmless or even convenient. For others, it raises serious concerns about informed consent and digital boundaries in both public and private spaces.
The implications extend beyond social discomfort. In professional and educational environments, the potential for misuse is significant. People may be unknowingly filmed in classrooms, clinics, salons, bathrooms, or social settings, situations where privacy should be assumed.
What makes this particularly troubling is that the data collected by these devices is not held by the individual user, but by the company behind them. In the case of Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, that means the footage, audio, and associated metadata are stored within Meta’s ecosystem, home to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This is not a privacy protected environment; it’s a commercial one built on data collection and behavioural tracking.
More recently, we’ve also observed law enforcement officers adopting smart glasses during their duties. (5) For example, very recently we witnessed a Canadian enforcement officer purchase a pair of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses with prescription lenses, and later wear them while on duty. To the average person, they would look like any other pair of eyewear. Yet they have the ability to record audio and video directly to Meta’s servers.
Some might argue that this is no different from the use of approved body-worn cameras, which have become standard in many police agencies. However, the distinction is crucial. Official body cameras operate within a secure, privacy-compliant framework. Their footage is sandboxed within law enforcement databases and governed by policies on access, storage, and disclosure and not use to train artificial intelligence. Smart glasses, on the other hand, operate in a consumer-grade ecosystem where the content is managed by a private corporation whose primary business is data monetization, not public safety or privacy protection.
As smart glasses become more common, the potential for misuse grows. The technology’s convenience and subtlety make it easy to deploy without notice, which means society is once again playing catch-up, balancing innovation against ethics, convenience against consent.
For parents, educators, businesses, and even law enforcement agencies, awareness and policy must evolve quickly. We need clear rules about when and where these devices can be used, and we must educate the public to recognize what they look like and what they can do.
The technology itself is not inherently bad. But without boundaries, transparency, and informed consent, smart glasses risk becoming yet another tool that erodes personal privacy in the name of progress.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
References:
4/ https://www.pcmag.com/news/meta-training-ai-on-your-analyzed-ray-ban-smart-glasses-images-videos#
5/ https://www.404media.co/a-cbp-agent-wore-meta-smart-glasses-to-an-immigration-raid-in-los-angeles/
