Smart glasses: a camera on someone else's face

Seven million lenses at eye level

At Meta Connect on 23 September the most eye-catching launch was a pair of virtual reality glasses weighing about 100 grams, with the battery and processors in a small puck that clips onto a belt. They will cost 1,299.99 dollars and arrive in spring 2027.¹ They are made mostly for games. The glasses that concern everyone are the ones people wear out and about: the third-generation Ray-Ban Meta, on sale in Italy from 449 euros, and the Meta Ray-Ban Display, with a small screen inside the lens, in shops in Milan and Rome since 13 October at 899 euros.² For the first time Meta also sells a model without a camera, the Ray-Ban Meta Audio, at 349 euros.

They are made by EssilorLuxottica, the French-Italian group born from the merger of Essilor and Luxottica. In 2025 it sold more than 7 million glasses with Meta's artificial intelligence, across Ray-Ban and Oakley.³ Between October 2023 and February 2025 it had sold two million.⁴ According to Counterpoint, in the first half of 2026 global shipments of AI glasses grew by 263% and Meta accounted for about 94% of those without a display.⁵

With a phone, to photograph someone you have to raise it and point it, and the person in front can see you doing it. Glasses remove that gesture. The lens is at eye level, it is triggered by voice or by a button on the arm, and the only warning is a small light. The buyer accepts the terms of use and chooses what to share. The person in front of them has signed nothing. This piece is mostly about that person, because many of these glasses will end up under the Christmas tree.

It happened before, with the Kodak

In 1888 George Eastman put the Kodak on sale, a small, simple camera meant for everyone. The advertising promised "You press the button, we do the rest". American newspapers told readers to beware of the Kodak, called cameras "deadly weapons" and coined a name for people who took pictures everywhere: "Kodak fiends".⁶ In 1902 a teenager in New York State, Abigail Roberson, found her face printed on an advert for flour, posted about 25,000 times. The court ruled against her, because no right to privacy existed. The outcry was such that New York State passed a law: using someone's likeness for commercial purposes requires their written consent.

The second precedent is closer to us. In 2013 Google sold the first Google Glass to developers for 1,500 dollars. Wearers soon became "glassholes", and some businesses and restaurants banned them. On 15 January 2015 Google announced the end of the programme.⁷ You could spot Glass from across the room, and that is one reason people rejected it. Today's glasses are designed to look like an ordinary pair of Ray-Bans, and they succeed.

What has happened in two years

On 24 January the BBC published an investigation into hundreds of short videos posted on TikTok and Instagram by dozens of men who claim to teach others how to pick up women, often for money. In many cases the footage appears to have been shot in secret with Meta's glasses. Dilara, 21, was approached on her lunch break in the London shop where she works. The video got 1.3 million views and her phone number was visible in the frame. Kim, 56, was filmed on a beach in West Sussex: 6.9 million views. None of the seven women who spoke to the BBC saw a light come on.⁴

At the end of February two Swedish newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, reported that staff at a subcontractor in Kenya watch footage recorded with the glasses to train Meta's AI, including scenes of nudity, sex and people in the bathroom. A few days later a class action was filed in San Francisco against Meta and Luxottica of America, challenging adverts with the slogan "designed for privacy, controlled by you". Meta replied that photos and videos stay on the device unless the user shares them, and that those shared with Meta AI are sometimes reviewed by contractors.⁸

The terms of use had already widened. Since 29 April 2025 the AI that uses the camera has been on by default unless you switch off the "Hey Meta" voice command, and voice recordings are kept for up to a year with no option to turn off storage: you can only delete them by hand.⁹

Then there is facial recognition. In October 2024 two Harvard students connected a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses to PimEyes, a face search engine, and showed that a face passed in the street can lead to a name, a phone number and a home address. They did not release the code.¹⁰ In February the New York Times revealed that Meta was preparing a feature called "Name Tag" to recognise people and get information about them through the assistant. An internal document suggested launching it at a time when civil rights groups would be busy with other things.¹¹ In June Wired found the code for that feature, switched off, inside the app that comes with the glasses. Meta replied that nothing has shipped and that it is not building a central database of faces.¹²

Two years of camera glasses

1. Oct 2024Two Harvard students identify strangers with a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses
2. Apr 2025Meta switches on the camera AI by default
3. Jan 2026The BBC documents videos of women filmed in secret
4. Feb 2026Footage seen by reviewers in Kenya and the "Name Tag" project
5. Mar 2026Class action in San Francisco against Meta and Luxottica of America
6. Sep 2026Meta turns off the camera on thousands of glasses with a tampered light
7. Oct 2026The European Data Protection Board issues its first guidance

A light you can cover with a finger

All the protection for the people being filmed rests on a white LED next to the lens. The BBC found several videos showing how to cover or remove it. Meta has added a check that blocks the camera when the light is covered or damaged, and on 1 September it told Semafor it had disabled the camera on thousands of tampered glasses, less than a tenth of one per cent of those sold. Alex Himel, Meta's vice president for wearables, called it a game of cat and mouse that will probably never end.¹³

On 13 October the European Data Protection Board, which brings together the EU's data protection authorities, adopted its first statement on smart glasses.¹⁴ According to the Board, current indicators leave many people unaware that they are being recorded. A white light is easily mistaken for a reflection of the sun, and people with poor sight do not notice it at all. The Board asks for lights that are visible in many lighting conditions and that make recording impossible when covered, and it suggests sound signals like the shutter click on phones, which in Japan cannot be muted.

Two clarifications matter more than the rest. The first concerns the wearer. If they send a video to a relative or a friend, European data protection law does not apply, because it is personal use. If they post it on a public profile, they become a data controller, with all the obligations of the GDPR. The second concerns the makers. When the AI analyses an image in which other people appear in order to answer the user, the AI provider is responsible for it and cannot rely on the wearer's behaviour to comply with the rules. Getting consent from strangers is almost impossible, and using those images to train AI would be particularly hard to justify. The case is already real, because at Connect Meta presented Muse, an assistant that the company says can act on what you are looking at.¹

What the law says in Italy

Since 2 February 2025 the AI Act has banned systems that create or expand databases of faces by scraping images indiscriminately from the internet or from CCTV. The ban on real-time biometric identification in public spaces, however, applies only to law enforcement.¹⁵ A feature like "Name Tag" would therefore not be banned automatically, but it would fall under the GDPR rules on biometric data, and Italy already has a precedent: in 2022 the Garante, the Italian data protection authority, fined Clearview AI 20 million euros for its database of faces collected online.¹⁶

The Garante had looked at Meta's glasses back in September 2021, when the Ray-Ban Stories came out. It requested information through the Irish authority, which supervises Meta in Europe, and met Facebook and Luxottica, which said they were willing to run information campaigns for buyers and for the public.¹⁷ On 10 September this year its president, Pasquale Stanzione, said the authority is following these devices closely because of the "not always perceptible collection of images and voices of third parties".¹⁸

Recording and publishing with glasses, in Italy

Situation	What the law says
Filming for yourself in a public place	Not a crime in itself. If the video stays private or goes only to friends and family, the GDPR does not apply to the person who shot it
Recording private life in a home without consent	It is the offence of unlawful interference in private life (art. 615-bis of the criminal code): six months to four years, the same penalty for spreading it
Publishing a person's face	Their consent is required (art. 96 of the copyright law). Anyone posting on a public profile also has GDPR obligations
Public events and well-known people	Consent is not required (art. 97), but never if the image harms honour, reputation or dignity
The person filmed	Can ask a court to stop the abuse and award damages (art. 10 of the civil code) and can complain to the Garante

The offence in article 615-bis covers only homes and private dwellings, while in the street what matters most is what you do with the video.¹⁹ One of a stranger chatted up, filmed without knowing and posted online to sell dating advice is unlikely to fit any of the exceptions in article 97.

What I think

When people talk about privacy and smart glasses, they usually discuss the data of the people who buy them. I think the main issue concerns the person in front of the lens, who has chosen nothing and has no way to protect themselves, other than spotting a light the size of a pinhead. The rules have to start from that person.

From the makers I would want four things, some of them already requested by the European Board. A camera that does not record when the light is covered, and Meta is getting there. A sound when a photo or video is taken, as on phones. No facial recognition of strangers, as a matter of principle and not as a setting that can be changed. No use of passers-by's images to train AI, except with a consent that in practice cannot be obtained.

For wearers the social rule already exists, and it is the one we use with phones. Anyone talking to someone up close while wearing camera glasses should say so, or take them off. I would never post a video with the face of a stranger filmed without their knowledge.

On bans I am more cautious. On 5 October the Norwegian government announced a proposal for a temporary ban in parks, beaches, schools, doctors' surgeries and gyms with changing rooms.²⁰ I understand the concern, and the government plans exemptions for vulnerable people, but a ban in parks treats anyone wearing those glasses as a suspect, including people who use them to find their way or because their sight is poor. I prefer rules tied to the place, clear and written at the entrance: in changing rooms, schools, hospitals and surgeries the camera is not used. As a Christmas present, if they are for music and phone calls, there is now a version without a lens.

Practical rules, for wearers and for venues

1. WearersSay so or take them offIn a conversation at close range, mention that the glasses have a camera. In changing rooms, at the gym, at the doctor's and near children, take them off.
2. WearersCheck the settingsSwitch off "Hey Meta" if you do not want the camera AI, delete voice recordings, do not share images of other people with the assistant.
3. Schools, gyms, surgeriesPut it on the doorA clear rule and a sign work better than an argument on the spot. The European Board names schools, medical facilities and changing rooms among the most sensitive places.
4. People who were filmedAsk for removalReport the video to the platform as harassment, keep the link and, if it stays online, go to the Garante or a lawyer. Dilara's video came down after the BBC stepped in.

There is one concrete thing that can be done before Christmas. In 2021 Facebook and Luxottica told the Garante they were willing to run information campaigns for buyers and for everyone else.¹⁷ Today the glasses are also sold in optician shops, and the place to explain to buyers what that light means, and when to take the glasses off, is the shop counter.