this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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“Experts in Europe warn that these devices are used to record strangers without their consent, possibly breaching EU law.”

“A small LED light is designed to indicate when recording is taking place, but RTBF's investigators found that tutorials explaining how to conceal the indicator are abundant and easily accessible online.”

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding who I despise more, parasite Mark Zuckerberg or its witless hosts who keep using its products—yes, Zuck's pronoun is it. Ban Ray-Ban, for frick's sake.

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[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Idk. Bans on recording someone in public without their consent, feel like a really difficult thing to properly enforce -- with or without the glasses. The number of people doing it with Smartphones already, in most jurisdictions at least, would make such a law's wide-spread enforcement seem implausible. And I mean, you're in a public area, so you sorta need to expect less privacy.... because it's in public?

[–] LwL@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Most places have laws on this. Often, it is legal to film/take photos, but not to focus on individuals.

[–] Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 day ago

Also makes a difference if you publish those pictures or videos.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I'm not as fussed over having laws on books, but on whether those laws are realistically enforceable. Like I recall reading at some point that lots of jurisdictions in the states define things like Orgies as a group of three or more people in a private dwelling without shoes on, based on ancient prudish attempts to describe what goes on. That's a law that's "on the books", but practically unenforceable.

Same sort of thought pattern, to me, generally applies to the recording of people in public. It's practically implausible that govt can enforce it uniformly, and it's on the books just so they can 'throw another book' at a perp who's been arrested for far greater offenses. There are also potential issues with 'two party consent' type recording setups, where one party is wanting to document events for legitimate reasons (recording an interaction with police, to CYA).

Idk. People taking pictures / recording public 'things', doesn't seem like a practical area for privacy legislation to come in overly heavy handed on.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Ya at least you can tell if someone's pointing a phone at you and recording you. Can't do that so easily when its glasses though. I knew these things were gonna be trouble from the start.

Dumb ficks buying these and helping the ultra wealthy expand their surveillance network. Jfc

It's pretty easy to just put a phone in a shirt pocket with the camera rolling as a sort of poor man's bodycam.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One of the issues is that there are legitimate uses for the tech. Like there was a post recently of a girl with hearing disabilities, ecstatic that she'd gotten glasses that provide real-time subtitles to people she talks to. A business / space with a "No Smart Glasses" policy, could essentially be denying people with disabilities access, which could land them in hot water just the same as allowing unfettered smart glass recordings.

Having them become more ubiquitous will also likely have severe impact on regular day to day interactions, even outside of the pervo-sphere. Talking with friends, or even interactions with other parties, can become a lot more complicated when people can record every word, can take those exchanges out of context, and use them against you in things like court proceedings. Eg. friends will often embellish comments/positions a bit for dramatic effect / story-telling purposes, with an understanding that it's not got to be perfectly accurate / you're going to be held accountable for every phrase. So you're right, that the more 'obvious' recording setup of phones limits this risk a bit... but not for long.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not all smart glasses have cameras. A camera is not needed for real time subtitles.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago

It was an example of use cases for wearable tech and people with disabilities. Cameras aren't 'technically' required for the other example I noted related to eavesdropping. There are plausible reasons why people with disabilities would need glasses with cameras, and 'recording' people extends beyond just camera-based recordings. The issue is more with ubiquitous, covert, wearable smart-tech.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think you can ban using such recordings in social media posts and such. The line your have to watch for is news reporters vs social media influencers. But it would at least enable prosecution of the dumb ones who don't even claim to be news reporters...

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'd stopped short of noting that it'd prolly be more realistic to enforce regulations on wide-spread sharing / social media hosting of such content. Like in some ways, recording someone in public for whatever reason seems reasonable -- recording interactions with police, for example, being an area that makes a good deal of sense -- but posting those recordings, especially with the implied 'hope' that they go viral / generate notoriety and/or monetized returns, is pretty dicey.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 0 points 23 hours ago

Yeah, it's hard to make a law that stops this, but doesn't get used against actual journalists. And the way the news media is trending more toward being social media influencer isn't helping. Maybe entitling the person to compensation based on what the influencer got might be possible. That would keep at least free journalists out of the picture. And the paid journalists can afford to pay people if something goes viral, or to take the time to get a waiver or something. Or maybe a combination involving secret recordings, since most of the regular news media is pretty obvious.

[–] jellywithin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

looks like governments are going to need more specific rules for smaller regions within cities. that would be a start, but ironically, it would probably drive more surveillance in public spaces.