Who Would You Even Sue

EPIC's overview of how privacy laws actually get enforced argues that private causes of action have been more capable of deterring abusive biometric practices than regulators, who move predictably and can be pressured. Statutes with a private right of action have produced balance-sheet settlements and caused at least one facial recognition company to leave an entire market segment.

That reading is persuasive. A regulator may not resolve this situation on its own.

Those cases shared a collector with assets, a business model tied to the practice, insurers, counsel and a share price. Deterrence worked because the defendant had something to lose and a decision-maker who could stop.

A person who bought glasses has no comparable assets, business model or scale, and may look sympathetic to a jury. Multiply that by millions of wearers and the theory disappears. Even a plaintiff with perfect knowledge faces a choice between suing an individual for less than filing costs or suing nobody.

Liability for capturing non-consenting parties could attach to the party that shipped the capability, instead of only the person who used it. The manufacturer selects the camera, indicator, audio behaviour and what leaves the device. Those decisions shape how the fleet behaves.

This is a demanding approach. Courts have historically been reluctant to assign liability to the maker of a general-purpose device, in part because a camera has lawful uses and a manufacturer does not direct it. The counterargument is that design choices are not necessarily neutral and may be controlled only by a party earlier in the chain.

Upstream liability would therefore need a defined connection to design or processing, not simply to the existence of a camera. Indicator behaviour, default retention, human review, and the routing of data are examples of choices a manufacturer or service provider can control even when it cannot control the wearer's purpose.

Individual responsibility would not disappear under that approach. A wearer can still misuse a lawful device, distribute footage, or ignore a venue rule. The analytical question is which party could have prevented the specific failure and whether the remedy is intended to change one person's conduct or the behaviour of an entire product fleet.