Articles

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

  1. Perspective

    The Glasses Were Never the Problem

    3 min read

    Nothing about a camera on a face is inherently wrong. The choices manufacturers make about what it does by default are what deserve scrutiny, not the person wearing it.

    Portrait of a person wearing glasses, with the figure dissolving into violet and orange particles against a pale background.

  2. Security

    Espionage, Theft, Extortion, Bribery: The Words Security Professionals Use Now

    4 min read

    Security professionals now connect smart glasses with espionage, data theft and extortion. Air Force restrictions and data-centre monitoring show how the threat model is changing.

    Black smart glasses in front of four shadowed figures representing corporate espionage, data theft, extortion and bribery.

  3. Open protocol

    A Privacy Signal the Smart Glasses Industry Can Test

    9 min read

    NearLens is partnering with PMSG to bring its ambitious BLE privacy-signal convention to iOS, adding real-time awareness of camera and microphone state to existing wearable-presence detection.

    No-recording symbol, idle camera, recording camera and microphone icons floating above a crowd at a technology event.

  4. Movements

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

    4 min read

    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.

  5. Policy design

    The Exemption Would Need Its Own Database

    4 min read

    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.

  6. Legal foundations

    Visibility Was Never Consent

    4 min read

    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.

  7. Framework

    The Question Was Never Ban the Glasses or Allow Them

    4 min read

    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.

  8. Governance timing

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

    2 min read

    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.

  9. Automated redaction

    The Blur Was Supposed to Be the Safeguard

    2 min read

    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.

  10. Corporate response

    The Fix Was a Marketing Campaign

    2 min read

    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.'

  11. Market response

    The Market Priced In What the Law Has Not

    3 min read

    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.

  12. Accessibility

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

    2 min read

    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.