Somebody at a coffee shop pointed their face at me last week and I genuinely could not tell if they were about to say hi or upload me to the internet. That’s the world we live in now. Smart glasses are everywhere, they look like regular sunglasses, and there is a real chance the person nodding at you across the room is quietly recording the whole exchange for later. Nobody asked me if I was okay with that. Nobody asked you either.
Meta’s been catching heat for exactly this, and honestly, good. People are (rightfully) uneasy about glasses that can film in public with a tiny LED light as the only tell, one that’s easy to miss and easier to ignore. The pitch is always the same: it’s just a camera, phones have had cameras forever, calm down. Except a phone announces itself. You see someone holding it up, framing a shot, and you know the deal. Glasses don’t announce anything. They just sit on someone’s face looking like eyewear while doing surveillance.
Here’s my actual problem with it, and it’s not really about the technology. Tech companies have gotten extremely good at rolling out things that quietly move the goalposts on consent, and counting on the rest of us to just adjust. Doorbell cameras did it to entire neighborhoods. AirTags did it to relationships. Now it’s your local coffee shop. Each time, the argument is the same: this is minor, this is normal, this is just where things are headed. And each time, a little more of the assumption that you control what happens to your own face and voice in public quietly disappears.
I get the convenience angle, I really do. Hands-free video, live translation, directions popping up in your field of vision, that’s genuinely cool stuff and I’m not immune to gadget appeal. But convenience for the wearer isn’t the same as consent for everyone standing near the wearer, and companies keep treating those two things like they’re interchangeable. They are not. One person gets a cool new toy. Everyone around them gets opted into being content without a vote.
The fix isn’t complicated
This isn’t a call to ban the glasses or go full pitchfork on anyone who buys a pair. The fix here is boring and obvious: make the recording indicator impossible to miss, not a pixel-sized light you need a magnifying glass to spot. Put real teeth behind the rules about recording people without them knowing. And maybe, as a culture, get back in the habit of asking before we point a device at someone’s face, because “I technically didn’t break a law” is a pretty low bar for how we treat each other.
Until that happens, I’m treating every stranger in sunglasses like they might be filming a documentary about me without my consent. Not because I think everyone’s doing it. Because I have no way of knowing who is, and that not-knowing is exactly the problem.
My two cents: the technology isn’t the villain here, the total lack of consent built into the rollout is. Fix the transparency, or don’t be surprised when people start treating your smart glasses like a red flag instead of a fashion accessory.