Articles

Reporting and analysis on recording, recognition, consent, Bluetooth awareness and the shared-space questions raised by wearable technology.

  1. Movements

    Stop Smart Glasses Is Betting It Isn't Too Late Yet

    A grassroots UK and Ireland campaign built the first retailer database showing where camera glasses are sold, and is asking the public to act before the devices become background noise.

    Two hands hold black camera-equipped glasses against a white background above the Stop Smart Glasses logo.

  2. Policy design

    The Exemption Would Need Its Own Database

    Carving out an accessibility exception to a smart glasses restriction sounds like the obvious compromise. Verifying who qualifies requires building the exact kind of registry the restriction was meant to prevent.

    A woman wearing dark glasses and holding a white cane walks arm in arm with a man through falling snow outside a building with a Finnish flag.

  3. Legal foundations

    Visibility Was Never Consent

    The industry's default defence is that a public street has no privacy left to violate. A Canadian court already showed why visibility alone cannot settle the question.

    A person wearing camera-enabled smart glasses walks through a canal-side demonstration with one hand over their mouth, surrounded by signs reading Visibility is not consent, My face, my choice, Smart glasses enable access, and Let cameras help.

  4. Framework

    The Question Was Never Ban the Glasses or Allow Them

    Both sides of this debate start from the same fact, a camera moved onto a face. The object-level question that follows is too coarse to answer it.

    A woman wearing camera-enabled smart glasses and holding a white cane looks toward a sculpture in a museum gallery while other visitors stand behind her.

  5. Governance timing

    Norway Said This a Week Ago. The World Just Found Out.

    A Norwegian minister announced plans to regulate camera wearables on August 25. English-language tech press treated it as news on September 2.

    A woman wearing camera-enabled glasses adjusts the frames while a recording indicator appears beside her.

  6. Automated redaction

    The Blur Was Supposed to Be the Safeguard

    When footage from smart glasses reaches a human reviewer, automatic face blurring is the last line of defence before it. That line has already failed.

    A hand holds camera-equipped glasses toward pedestrians on a rainy Ottawa walkway, with Parliament buildings visible beyond the lenses.

  7. Corporate response

    The Fix Was a Marketing Campaign

    A regulator asked Meta in 2021 to either prove its recording light works or run a public campaign explaining it. Meta chose the campaign five years later, only once the backlash became a PR crisis.

    A satirical smart-glasses billboard stands on a rainy Paris street, showing camera-equipped glasses beside the line 'The biggest advance in pervert technology since the trenchcoat.'

  8. Market response

    The Market Priced In What the Law Has Not

    Wall Street reacted to the "pervert glasses" label faster than regulators did, exposing the gap between market pressure and formal oversight.

    A man stands over a woman lying on a bench in a dark, glass-walled gym at night.

  9. Accessibility

    The Light Was Only Ever Notice for People Who Could See It

    Every proposal in this debate treats a visible cue as the baseline protection. That baseline already excluded a portion of the public before smart glasses existed.

    A woman holding a white cane walks along a city sidewalk while another woman passes beside her and a worker stands behind construction barriers.

  10. Schools

    When the Person Filming You Sits Next to You Tomorrow

    Advice for people recorded in public often concerns a stranger who will not be encountered again. In a school, the person holding the camera may be in the next class.

    A student with a backpack looks back in a school hallway while three classmates stand nearby, including one wearing camera-enabled glasses and another holding a phone.

  11. Practical guide

    How to Tell if Someone's Smart Glasses Are Recording You

    The honest answer is that certainty is often unavailable. This guide explains what the indicator light does and does not prove, and what a Bluetooth scan can actually indicate.

    Two women sit in a public indoor space, with one wearing glasses, illustrating uncertainty about whether smart glasses are recording.

  12. Smart glasses and privacy

    How Smart-Glasses Privacy Changed From Recording to Recognition

    A smart-glasses camera can feed public-face search during an encounter, while the person in view may see only ordinary frames.

    Smart-glasses wearer in a quiet café with an unaware bystander reflected in one lens, illustrating privacy risks beyond recording.