Meta has sold<\/a> millions of pairs of its AI-powered smart glasses over the last several years \u2014 but as sales boom, so too has the backlash<\/a> to the devices. The glasses allow wearers to listen to music or take calls, but the feature that has sparked outrage is the ability to record using them: Many people see them as a new notch in the surveillance apparatus at best, and \u201cpervert\u201d and \u201ccreep\u201d glasses at worst.<\/p>\n Ordinarily, if you are recorded against your will, you can try to leave the area or otherwise resist being recorded. But many people are encountering smart glasses for the first time while at their job, especially those who interact with the public, like retail and service workers. In the workplace, smart glasses exacerbate the power imbalance between the customer and the employee, or the boss and subordinate. Resisting invasive technology is risky when you depend on your job to pay rent or buy groceries. It\u2019s harder still when many workplaces don\u2019t yet have policies around a new gadget that the public is grappling with in real time.<\/p>\n Service and retail workers in particular have become a target for stealth \u2014 and annoying \u2014 smart glasses recording. People wearing Meta glasses are going into stores and harassing or \u201cpranking\u201d employees<\/a>, using the footage for content and making unwitting workers the butt of the joke. The video made of Hinkle and their manager without their consent is the exact kind of content that Instagram has claimed it will now remove<\/a> \u2014 yet the account that uploaded it was filled with similar \u201cprank\u201d videos harassing workers at their jobs.<\/p>\n There\u2019s little recourse for those who have been unknowingly recorded. In one of the videos posted to social media that Hinkle is featured in, the Meta glasses wearer is seen chumming it up and dancing with a police officer who arrived at the Target store.<\/p>\n \u201cYou boys stay out of trouble,\u201d the cop says as he fist bumps the person recording. Instagram banned the account \u2014 and along with it, removed the video of Hinkle \u2014 after The Verge asked the company about it.<\/p>\n Emily, who works at a popular Seattle tourist destination, deals with vlogger questions and videographers trying to get close-up shots of the food her attraction sells. As a worker in an area with lots of foot traffic, being in the background of a video was just part of the job. More recently, though, the encounters have left her feeling deeply uncomfortable. The worst is when a much taller man stands over her and films her with his Meta glasses. She thinks \u2014 hopes \u2014 he is not filming down her shirt. But that\u2019s what it feels like.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone was [holding] a phone up from that angle, I could obviously be like, \u2018Hey man, please stop that,\u2019\u201d Emily says. The glasses make it much harder to tell what, exactly, a customer is filming. (Emily asked that The Verge only use her first name and not name her workplace, citing concerns of getting targeted.)<\/p>\n Emily works as a cashier and interacts with up to 2,000 people a day. Even before Meta released its AI-powered smart glasses, people from all over the world visited and recorded videos at Emily\u2019s workplace. But the new method of filming has quickly become part of her daily working environment: On some days, she says up to 10 people an hour will come in wearing smart glasses. The most preferable situation is that a customer filming her will use the video for relatively innocuous purposes, like a travel vlog or a food review.<\/p>\n Satirical posters were plastered in New York protesting Meta glasses. Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales \/ The Verge<\/p>\n \u201cWorst-case scenario, they\u2019re doing something significantly more nefarious with it,\u201d Emily worries. \u201cThat is what\u2019s significantly more scary to me \u2026 That feels like it\u2019s a very easy way to get content of young women specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the encounters filmed using Meta glasses are explicitly gendered, like a genre of videos where men approach women with pickup lines and make content out of the encounters<\/a>. Meta glasses have a light that indicates when they\u2019re recording, but some people have tampered with the glasses<\/a> to secretly record without being noticed. Meta says it is working on disabling<\/a> filming capabilities if the glasses detect the light has been damaged or covered.<\/p>\n Emily is conscious of the fact that she\u2019s a young woman working in a public place all the time, which adds to the baseline discomfort she feels.<\/p>\n \u201cI also want to emphasise how creepy I think the general surveillance aspect of it is, not just as a young woman, but as a person living [among] other people,\u201d she says. \u201cIt does add to the feeling of constantly being watched.\u201d<\/p>\n Meta has maintained that privacy features are built into its smart glasses.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople use our glasses because they\u2019re genuinely helpful \u2013 from listening to music, to live translation or hands-free calls. For those wearing them and the people around them, trust matters. That\u2019s why we built privacy into our AI glasses from the ground up,\u201d Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby said in an email. El-Kassaby pointed to the LED indicator light that blinks when a user is taking a photo or video, and the tamper-proofing the company has started to roll out.<\/p>\n El-Kassaby said Meta has begun blocking hashtags on its platforms associated with harassing content, including \u201crizz,\u201d \u201cpickup artist,\u201d and \u201ccold approach,\u201d and has removed thousands of pieces of content under its bullying and harassment policy. The same rules apply to content filmed on other devices, like a smartphone, El-Kassaby says. But for years, the contemporary social media ecosystem has depended on strangers unwittingly becoming content<\/a> \u2014 everything from this new wave of Meta glasses-powered \u201cpranks\u201d to people-of-Walmart-style gawking. A social internet cleansed of all content that takes advantage of others would be quite empty.<\/p>\n For the first few weeks, Jennifer didn\u2019t think much of her new boss. Then one day, he was wearing a different pair of glasses at their job at a Sprouts grocery store in the Atlanta area.<\/p>\n She looked at him and asked, \u201cAre those Meta glasses?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, they are,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat of it?\u201d<\/p>\n Jennifer recalls starting to shake because their presence \u2014 and her boss\u2019s lack of concern about how violating a recording device in the workplace could be \u2014 was so disconcerting.<\/p>\n Sprouts workers are barred from wearing headphones on the store floor because it\u2019s a safety hazard when operating heavy machinery, Jennifer says, and non-managers are not allowed to have their phones with them. (She asked that The Verge use a pseudonym so she could discuss her experience freely.) What\u2019s more, Jennifer says Sprouts stores prohibit videography and photography inside \u2014 customers who come in know the store has security cameras, but are likely not expecting employees to have glasses with built-in cameras in them, too. An employee wearing Meta glasses could break that trust with customers. Store employees also handle sensitive data at their jobs, including customers\u2019 names, email addresses, and credit card information.<\/p>\n Jennifer says she was given an ultimatum: Accept the working conditions or quit. She resigned.<\/p>\n Jennifer imagines her manager wearing Meta glasses in the break room, or the bathroom \u2014 places where a worker expects a certain level of privacy. \u201cIt essentially collapses the social contract, in my opinion, to allow this,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Jennifer also worries that women and children shopping in the store are particularly endangered by the technology, and noted that the recording light on her boss\u2019s glasses looked like it had been obscured in some way. Jennifer told The Verge that she filed a complaint to HR and asked that Sprouts make a formal policy around smart glasses, but found the company to be largely unresponsive and unhelpful. Instead, she says, she was given an ultimatum: Accept the working conditions or quit. She resigned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is about the data that is collected, the footage, the audio, and the facial recognition that can be added to these glasses,\u201d Jennifer says. \u201cI want it so that it\u2019s not acceptable for anybody to be doing that in the workplace.\u201d Sprouts didn\u2019t respond to The Verge\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n Spy-like smart glasses are no longer a distant sci-fi future; they\u2019re here now, and more tech companies are reportedly<\/a> developing them. Workers, meanwhile, are left in the lurch as laws and company policies catch up to their daily reality.<\/p>\n Experts say laws governing privacy in the US are scattershot, state-dependent, and often outdated. Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at Boston University, says information privacy law generally states that if you are in public, you have a reduced expectation of privacy \u2014 though some instances, like recording someone in a locker room changing, could open up the person recording to liability.<\/p>\n Workplace protections around being recorded, though, are almost entirely governed by corporate policy. Some workplaces have explicitly banned smart glasses: In August, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a policy that bars its employees from wearing Meta glasses<\/a> because of the potential of capturing sensitive information. Some courthouses<\/a> have also restricted smart glasses because they could be used to do things like identify jurors.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best hope for employees is through collective bargaining and policy-level rules around what kinds of recording technologies will be allowed and when they\u2019ll be allowed to be used,\u201d Hartzog says.<\/p>\n Having smart glasses in the workplace could also create new liabilities for corporations that permit the devices: Businesses are charged with being stewards of customer and employee data, and as surveillance increases, so will the amount of abuses and breaches that accompany that surveillance, Hartzog says. He recommends strong and clear policies prohibiting the use of smart glasses \u2014 for both employees\u2019 and customers\u2019 sake.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that when people are being watched, they feel less free. They chill their behavior, they feel pressure to conform. They worry about even minor deviations from norms being used against them,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just a sort of suffocating atmosphere to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here to watch you, and you\u2019re here to perform for me.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just service and retail workers who have come face-to-face with unwanted recordings while they\u2019re working \u2014 creatives and performers are also grappling with a strange new reality. Earlier this summer, comedian Electra Telesford was onstage in the middle of a joke when she noticed blinking lights coming from the crowd. In an audio recording of her set that she shared with The Verge, Telesford can be heard addressing the man in the audience directly.<\/p>\n \u201cAre your glasses blinking?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n He responds that he\u2019s recording her.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, could you not?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re there for,\u201d he says, defiantly. \u201cI\u2019m here to watch you, and you\u2019re here to perform for me.\u201d The audience member refuses to stop filming even after being asked to. Rather than argue back and forth, Telesford cuts her set short and walks offstage.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018I can\u2019t do anything about it except get myself out of view of the camera on your face,\u2019\u201d she says of the exchange. \u201cThat\u2019s all I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n At a comedy club or a more formal venue, audience members are typically told that recording isn\u2019t allowed before a show starts. Events at bars, like the one Telesford was performing in, are typically more relaxed, she says. After the set, producers and hosts of the event spoke to the audience member and explained that comics are working on material for future opportunities where they can be paid for their performances, like television; having sets posted somewhere public could prevent performers from getting other distribution deals, since the material would no longer be exclusive. Going forward, the bar plans to announce at the beginning of performances that recording with Meta glasses is not allowed, Telesford says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely kind of tarnished every other interaction I\u2019ve had,\u201d Telesford says, even in front of audiences where the glasses aren\u2019t present. \u201cEvery time I\u2019ve been onstage since, it\u2019s been a worry, a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n Being surreptitiously (or blatantly) recorded while at work isn\u2019t just a problem for public-facing workers; it\u2019s just as easy to imagine concerns that could arise if a coworker at your office starts wearing smart glasses, or if a medical professional wears them while providing care to a patient. Smart glasses reframe person-to-person interactions, creating a watchful technological mediary between two people. There\u2019s a stark difference between having a casual, private conversation and the threat of everything you say or do being captured for limitless dissemination without your consent.<\/p>\n Much of the pushback has focused on Meta glasses\u2019 ability to invade privacy. Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales \/ The Verge<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s current smart glasses can only record for a few minutes, but it has ambitions to make the tech even more integrated into daily life. The company is reportedly developing smart glasses that record all the time<\/a>, continuously pulling in data from audio and photos that the wearer could ask Meta AI about. What\u2019s more, with the \u201csuper sensing\u201d mode, the LED indicator light would not be on except when the wearer is actively taking photos and videos that are saved. The number of routine encounters that are recorded, saved, processed, and accessed later could skyrocket, effectively quantifying even the most mundane or private parts of our lives.<\/p>\n Hartzog, the law professor, says, \u201cThis is just another way for employees who already have less power in their roles to be further marginalized and dissected, and is part of a larger story about the way in which being an employee means taking on increased suffering as part of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Mia SatoClose Mia Sato<\/p>\n Features Writer, The Verge<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by Mia Sato<\/a><\/p>\n CreatorsClose<\/p>\n Creators<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Creators<\/a><\/p>\n GadgetsClose<\/p>\n Gadgets<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Gadgets<\/a><\/p>\n LaborClose<\/p>\n Labor<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Labor<\/a><\/p>\n MetaClose<\/p>\n Meta<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Meta<\/a><\/p>\n PolicyClose<\/p>\n Policy<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Policy<\/a><\/p>\n ReportClose<\/p>\n Report<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Report<\/a><\/p>\n SecurityClose<\/p>\n Security<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Security<\/a><\/p>\n TechClose<\/p>\n Tech<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"Satirical](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/268667_meta_glasses_spying_posters_AKrales_0180.jpg\"\/)
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