The state of New York bans smart glasses
Glassholes are no longer welcome.
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- New York will ban recording-enabled eyewear and headwear in all state courts from July 20, 2026.
- The ban covers more than 1,240 courts and aims to stop hidden recordings that violate state civil rights law.
- Smart glasses, including Meta Ray-Ban models, face growing criticism over privacy risks and non-consensual filming.
- Civil rights groups warn facial recognition in smart glasses could enable stalking, surveillance, and abuse.
All eyewear and headwear that contains recording technology will be banned in New York state courts.
The ban, which applies to more than 1,240 state, county, city, town, and village courts, will take effect on July 20th, 2026, according to Syracuse.com.
The prohibition is intended to prevent the surreptitious recording of court proceedings in violation of the New York State Civil Rights Law.
All Unified Court System facilities will now be free of eyewear and headwear that contain cameras, microphones, or other recording devices.
Similar bans have been implemented in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Wisconsin.
Smart glasses, including Meta Ray-Ban models, have been at the center of controversy due to their ability to record other people.
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While the glasses show a blue light when in use, it is not always noticeable, and it does not prevent victims from suffering painful consequences.
A London woman who was approached by a friendly stranger on the street was later shocked to learn that the man had filmed her with his smart glasses and uploaded the video to social media, amassing 40,000 views.
An even bigger shock came when the man demanded money to remove the video, and the police said they couldn’t do much about it because filming in public is legal.
The case is part of a broader trend where so-called “manosphere” influencers record their interactions with women, using these videos to give dating advice.
Unsurprisingly, the device earned a nickname “pervert glasses,” while its wearers are often referred to as “glassholes” online.
“A serious threat to privacy”
It’s not only the humiliation of appearing in one of these videos that concerns citizens and experts. Smart glasses may also potentially be used for facial recognition of strangers.
In June, Meta quietly added what appears to be code for a facial recognition algorithm to a companion app for its smart glasses, Wired reported. The code was deleted – also quietly – the day after the investigation was published.
If smart glasses with facial recognition were to become widely available, it could mean the end of privacy as we know it and would enable stalking and surveillance.
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The American Civil Liberties Union and 75 other organizations wrote an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in April 2026, urging the company to halt and publicly disavow its plans to deploy facial recognition features on its smart glasses.
The groups said the technology represents “a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties” for every member of our society, and especially for historically marginalized groups.
The letter reads, “People should be able to move through their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents, and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities.”