Meta's Smart Glasses Face Growing Privacy Backlash Over Secret Recording

Meta's smart glasses were supposed to be the next big thing—a sleek piece of wearable technology that lets you capture moments, take calls, and talk to an AI assistant without reaching for your phone. Instead, they've become a flashpoint in a growing privacy crisis, with the devices earning an unflattering nickname: pervert glasses.

The problem is straightforward and unsettling. Some people are using the glasses to secretly record strangers—at clubs, in malls, on college campuses, on sidewalks—and then posting the videos online. Many of these recordings capture people who have no idea they're being filmed, often in awkward or uncomfortable situations. A woman named Gaby Luisa was approached outside a dance club in Arizona by a man wearing what appeared to be Meta glasses. When she politely declined his advances, she thought the interaction was over. It wasn't. Days later, she discovered the encounter had been recorded and uploaded to YouTube without her consent. "It's really weird to monetize off of people, and they're not even aware that they're being recorded," she said.

Meta dominates the smart glasses market, controlling roughly 69 percent of it in the first quarter of 2026. The company sells the devices through major retailers like Best Buy and LensCrafters, with prices ranging from about $224 to $800 depending on the model. They've partnered with Ray-Ban and Oakley, enlisted celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Blackpink's Jennie to promote them, and opened dedicated "Meta Lab" stores in Los Angeles and other cities. The global market for these glasses more than tripled in value over a year.

The glasses do have a built-in safeguard: a flashing white light on the frames that's supposed to alert people when recording is happening. But some users have found a workaround. They've hired people to drill into the eyewear and disable the light, turning the glasses into covert recording devices. Videos of these interactions have proliferated across Instagram and other platforms, often framed as jokes or pickup attempts. The people being filmed frequently appear uncomfortable, telling the strangers to leave them alone. The backlash has been swift and public. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel called them "pervert glasses" on national television. Singer Lorde told her concert audience they weren't "sexy." The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 70 organizations sent a letter to Meta demanding the company commit to never adding facial recognition features to the glasses, warning such technology poses a "serious threat to privacy and civil liberties."

Meta has responded with updates. Last month, the company modified the glasses so that tampering with the camera disables it. A company spokesperson emphasized that privacy was built into the device from the start and that people use them for legitimate reasons—listening to music, live translation, hands-free calls. The company said it will continue strengthening protections as the technology evolves. Instagram, which Meta owns, has begun removing videos that violate its harassment and bullying policies.

But the damage to consumer confidence is real. Some businesses have taken matters into their own hands. The 5 Point Cafe in Seattle, which banned Google Glass over a decade ago, has now banned Meta glasses from its diner and dive bar. A 2025 Instagram post from the restaurant declared: "Leave your Meta-SpyBan Display at home, they are officially Ray-Ban-ned from all of our restaurants. We serve privacy, not side-eye surveillance." The University of San Francisco issued a safety advisory after a man wearing Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses approached women with unwanted comments and inappropriate questions. Even people who use the glasses legitimately are feeling the social pressure. Ben Cook, a New York creator who uses Meta glasses to listen to music on runs and take calls, said he doesn't wear them to social events anymore. "I don't wear them to social events because I don't really want to get into that conversation," he said. "I'm not using it to record anybody."

The backlash echoes a similar moment more than a decade ago when Google Glass faced fierce criticism. Early adopters who used the $1,500 glasses to secretly record people earned the label "Glassholes." Snap released more powerful augmented reality glasses this year for $2,195, but the company's earlier attempt to sell recording glasses through bright yellow vending machines in 2016 flopped entirely. Now, as Apple, Google, Samsung, and Snap all develop their own smart eyewear, the industry faces a critical moment. Jitesh Ubrani, a director at market research firm IDC, noted that negative headlines like these can slow mainstream adoption even if early enthusiasts aren't deterred. "A headline cycle like this is exactly the kind of thing that could slow momentum with mainstream buyers, even if early adopters don't blink," he said.

Some people are taking matters into their own hands. Yves Jeanrenaud, a developer in Germany, created an app called Nearby Glasses that alerts users if smart glasses might be recording nearby. Released in February, it has accumulated roughly 110,000 downloads on Android, mostly from users in the United States and Canada. The app's user base includes a strip club owner, a Buddhist monk, and parents—people with particular reasons to worry about covert surveillance. Jeanrenaud himself received an alert about smart glasses on a train but couldn't identify who was wearing them. "It's a social problem that we encounter," he said. "That we don't value privacy, that we feel entitled to use others for our entertainment or our private gain, and technology amplifies that."