Meta’s Camera Glasses Are Being Banned by UK Restaurants and Theatres Over Privacy Fears

Meta wants its smart glasses to become ordinary face-furniture where we don’t even think about them or the people using them. Unfortunately (for Meta) the UK restaurant and nightlife industry are fighting back, and banning clients from wearing the spectacles in their establishments.

Some UK restaurants, pubs and theatres have either banned Meta’s camera-equipped glasses or said customers will be asked to remove them if they’re being used to record. The glasses start at around £359 and look relatively normal. That’s part of their appeal, of course. You can take photos and video, make calls, listen to music and use features such as live translation without reaching for your phone. But that’s also exactly what makes people nervous about them.

Some venues would rather not take the chance

Restaurateur Jeremy King, whose London restaurants include Simpsons in the Strand, Arlington and The Park, allegedly isn’t a fan. He told The Guardian that he would never knowingly allow anything that invaded the privacy of his guests. Soho House has a similar policy. Filming isn’t allowed in its private members’ clubs, and Meta’s glasses aren’t getting a special exemption.

Even Wetherspoons has also said that customers shouldn’t use the glasses to record people in its pubs. Chairman Tim Martin said the glasses appear to go against the general rule that customers and employees shouldn’t be filmed without their permission.

Theatre-goers may run into the same problem. ATG Theatres, which operates venues including the Bristol Hippodrome and Edinburgh Playhouse, doesn’t allow filming during shows. Anyone wearing the glasses during a performance can be asked to take them off.

The problem with a camera you can’t easily see

Essentially, it’s mobile phone cameras on steroids, which is one reason given as to why Gen Zers are less likely to let their hair down than older generations. In order to avoid being filmed and posted online to be ridiculed they are actively just opting out from drinking and dancing in public.

However, at least if someone points a phone or camera at you you have a chance of noticing. Much less so a pair of glasses. Meta has tried to deal with this by putting a small LED on the glasses that flashes when they’re recording. The company says the light can’t be disabled, and if someone covers or damages it, the camera is automatically disabled.

That’s a useful safeguard. But it’s not exactly foolproof from a social point of view. If someone across a busy restaurant is wearing the glasses, are you really going to notice a tiny LED flashing for a few seconds? And even if you do, how do you know what they’re recording?

There have already been reports of people being recorded without their knowledge. One woman told the BBC that a man recorded her and then demanded money to remove the videos from social media. Another woman said she had been recorded during sexual encounters without her consent.

[Related Reading: DuckDuckGo Launches “Smart” Glasses With “0% Surveillance Risk”]

Meta wants us to see them as normal

The company has spent a lot of effort trying to make its smart glasses feel like normal eyewear rather than another gadget you have to carry around. The latest models include fashionable designs, including a cat-eye version promoted by Kylie Jenner.

Meta says more than 7 million pairs have now been sold worldwide, with sales tripling over the past year. Meta admittedly has attempted to circumvent the privacy issues by making the LED recording light reasonably obvious, and it cannot be easily turned off either.

Essentially these restaurants, clubs and bars are private spaces, and they are putting the comfort of their clientele first. In public spaces we have little to no protections. I suspect these glasses will become far more common in the coming year, as cameras and even smart phones could begin to become less popular.

So far, it seems to be mostly women objecting to being filmed in secret, which makes sense since they are usually the gender most at risk of becoming victims of sexual harrassment such as upskirting or deep-fake images and videos. However, I do suspect that if women started wearing these glasses in large numbers and recorded their day-to-day experiences in the street or at work, opinion about these devices may change very quickly, and we could see a rise in bans in public spaces and stronger legislation.

[via the guardian]

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