Over the last decade, the tech industry has been pushing "smart glasses"—tech-infused glasses with cameras, AI, maps, displays, and more—with mixed success. However, recent products like **Meta’s** **Ray-Ban Display Glasses** and **Oakley’s Meta Glasses** have gained significant traction. Before you strap a dashcam to your face and sprint out into the world filming everything and everyone in your life, there are some civil liberties and privacy concerns to consider before buying or using a pair. **Meta** is currently the biggest player in this space, with their partnerships with **Ray-Ban** and **Oakley** leading the market. While models from **Snapchat** exist, they are far less common. **Google** has also announced a partnership with **Warby Parker** for their “AI-powered smart glasses,” and rumors persist about a competing product from **Apple**. With that, let’s dive into some of the considerations you should make before purchasing a pair. ## If You’re Thinking About Buying Smart Glasses ### You’re likely not the only one who can see (and hear) your footage The photos and videos you record with most smartglasses will likely be stored online at some point in the process. On **Meta’s** offerings, unless you are livestreaming, media you capture when you press the camera button is kept on the glasses until you import them onto your phone, but media is [imported automatically by default](https://www.meta.com/help/ai-glasses/683425686669295/) into the **Meta AI** mobile app, which is required to set up the glasses. You can't use any AI features locally on the glasses. So anytime you use AI features, like when you say, “Hey Meta, start recording,” the footage is fed to Meta. You can use the glasses without the **Meta AI** app entirely, but considering you can’t easily download footage from the glasses to your phone without it, most people will likely use the app. Some videos are fed to **Meta** for AI training, and we know at least in some cases that those videos go through human review. An [investigation by Swedish newspapers found that](https://www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/metas-ai-smart-glasses-and-data-privacy-concerns-workers-say-we-see-everything) workers were reviewing and annotating camera footage, which includes all sorts of sensitive videos, including nudity, sex, and going to the bathroom. **Meta** [claimed to the BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q33nvj0qpo) that this is in accordance , all in the name of AI training, which states: > *In some cases, Meta will review your interactions with AIs, including the content of your conversations with or messages to AIs, and this review may be automated or manual (human).* This all means that **Meta** and their third-party contractors will have access to at least some of what you record, and it’s very hard as a user to know where footage goes, who will have access to it, and what they will do with it. When you save footage to your phone’s camera roll, which is where the [**Meta AI** app stores content](https://www.meta.com/help/ai-glasses/1427588664906909/), that might also be sent to **Apple** or **Google’s** servers, depending on your settings. Employees at these companies can then possibly access that media, and it could be [shared with law enforcement](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/how-cops-can-get-your-private-online-data). The recorded audio from conversations with **Meta AI** are also saved by default, and if you don’t like that, tough luck, [unless you go in and manually delete them](https://www.theverge.com/news/658602/meta-ray-ban-privacy-policy-ai-training-voice-recordings) every time you say something. ### Filming all the time is even more privacy invasive than you think A common argument in favor of using the cameras in smartglasses is that phones and cameras can do this too, and it’s never been a problem. But smartglasses are designed to resemble regular glasses, to the point where [most reviews](https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/ray-ban-meta-skyler-glasses-review) [point out how friends didn’t notice](https://www.theverge.com/23922425/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-review) that they had cameras embedded in them. They’re designed to be invisible to those being recorded outside of a small indicator light when they’re recording video footage ([that cheap hacks can disable](https://www.404media.co/how-to-disable-meta-rayban-led-light/)). Whereas it is often obvious that a person is recording if they pull their phone out of their pocket and point it at someone else. Moreover, constant recording of everything in public spaces can create all sorts of potential privacy problems, some more obvious than others. This is another way that cameras on glasses are different from cameras on phones: it is far easier to constantly record one’s whereabouts with the former than the latter. If you continuously record, maybe you just happen to catch someone entering their passcode or password onto their phone or computer at a coffee shop, or broadcast someone’s bank details when you’re standing in line at an ATM. That doesn’t even begin to get into when smartglasses [are intentionally used for](https://www.404media.co/metas-ray-ban-glasses-users-film-and-harass-massage-parlor-workers/) [less socially responsible means](https://mashable.com/article/meta-ray-ban-glasses-are-making-it-easier-to-film-strangers-for-content). And some people may forget to turn off their smartglasses when they enter a private space like a bathroom. And if you find yourself caught on someone’s camera, there’s not much you can do in recourse. If you do notice a stranger recording you, it’s up to you to intervene and ask not to be included in that footage, which can easily turn awkward [or confrontational.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/imagine-being-based-guy-says-143000399.html) Our expectations of [privacy shift when we’re in public](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/you-really-do-have-some-expectation-privacy-public), but bystanders in many cases will still have privacy interests. Public spaces are a place where you will be seen, but that shouldn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to catalog and identify everyone. ### Consider the company’s the track record and public statements **Meta**, **Google**, **Apple**—perhaps one benefit of all the major tech companies entering this market is that we already have a good idea of how much they tend to respect the privacy of their users or the openness of their platforms. Spoiler, it’s often not much. **Meta** has a [long](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/texas-wins-14-billion-biometric-settlement-against-meta-it-would-have-happened) [history](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/mad-meta-dont-let-them-collect-and-monetize-your-personal-data) of [privacy](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/04/553000000-reasons-not-let-facebook-make-decisions-about-your-privacy) [invasive](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/one-answer-facebook-problem-block-its-tracking-technologies) [technologies](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/android-users-change-setting-stop-facebooks-collection-your-call-and-text-metadata) and [practices](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-documents-show-facebook). We’ve [heard rumblings that Meta](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/seven-billion-reasons-facebook-abandon-its-face-recognition-plans) hopes to add face recognition to its smartglasses, preferably, “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.” Yikes. This is a monumentally bad idea that should be abandoned by **Meta** and any of its competitors considering a similar feature. But regardless of whether they launch this feature, it’s a pretty clear indication of where **Meta** *wants* these sorts of devices to go. ## If You Have Smartglasses Already ### Opt out of sharing with Meta where you can You can disable a couple of the features where unnecessary data is sent to **Meta**. In the **Meta AI** app, under the device settings, there’s a privacy page where you can disable sharing [with **Meta** to improve and personalize **Meta** products](https://www.meta.com/help/ai-glasses/483508126