More and more, i see people wearing these ‘smart’ glasses as sunglasses which i find totally creepy and intrusive. Living in the EU, i am wondering how these glasses are even ‘allowed’ in public or may even be sold here. It becomes harder to avoid cause they become so hard to identify. How to deal with this? To what extend is this allowed? (cause apparently it is some way)
Using a camera on public property in the EU is broadly very legal.
Which is wild because they shut down Google Glass in the UK because of the ability to photograph and record people without their knowledge. Preemptive bans by establishments, government and the public were followed by Google giving up on the consumer base after a couple months. Privacy and decency is no longer part of this world, it seems.
Most answers here are opinions which are perfectly valid, even important, but also irrelevant regarding the actual law.
I’m not a regulator or a lawyer so instead of providing another opinion or false information I recommend checking dedicated structures, e.g. AccessNow https://www.accessnow.org/tag/augmented-reality/ or EFF https://www.eff.org/issues/xr while being mindful both of those are from the US and thus if you are not looking for EU specific article, they are basically irrelevant too. You can also check legal research e.g. https://edpl.lexxion.eu/article/EDPL/2024/2/8 which would be useful to get a better understanding of the current legal situation regardless of suggestions.
FWIW this is me speaking for 3min at he European Commission just few weeks ago https://video.benetou.fr/w/65FQnvrncexbJ1jFNKkMrV on providing and using an open stack for smart glasses, more broadly XR, but again this is JUST my perspective, not the actual law. Overall my rule of thumb is now legal situation comes from nothing, so relying on what has existed before, e.g. seeing smart glasses recording as wearable smartphones is at least a starting point.
Is there an expectation of privacy when in public spaces in the EU?
“expectation of privacy” is a US-specific legal standard that doesn’t apply on much of the EU. In many countries, you can’t just record someone without their permission or some other permission, regardless of their expectation of privacy.
what happens if you record say, a tree and someone walks in frame…when what? is it the camera person’s fault, or the one walking.
I don’t know, I’m not that much of a legal expert. My guess would be in most places you’re just supposed to delete it or not use it.
Facial recognition street cameras are far more dangerous than these. Sure they are pretty creepy but without rayban you could already insert tiny cameras into glasses to spy on people
EDIT : the only big concern is that they get more popular and that they increased even faster the global surveillance
Well law enforcement already use videos uploaded to social networks, what’s gonna stop them from using videos recorded by glasses once they are in the cloud?
You’re absolutely right but these are mainly a droplet in the glass of global surveillance started by global facial cameras But at the end they are surely going to even more increase this shit
Ugh… Movin Facial recognition, what a joke. I put them on the same level of stupidity as those who put Tesla’s AI chip in their brain.
Sad days for privacy and anonymity enthusiasts 😮💨😮💨
What about combatting smart glasses with dumb glasses? It works now and even facial recognition software cannot recognize you if wear a cap and dumb glasses.
I don’t think it’s a big deal most of the time if in public. And private places are always allowed to ban cameras. If you ban smart glasses because of the camera, then you have to ban phones and that was tried and failed in most places. And banning cameras in public or requiring a license to carry one would be a huge hit to freedom overall. All of those things were already tried when portable cameras and then cell phones with cameras were new if you want to research why.
The idea is to allow social pressures to deal with these things. And most of the imagined problems never actually pop up. Like there wasn’t much of a significant increase in illicit photography in changing rooms when cell phones were allowed. The only difference here is that the smart glasses may end up being difficult to differentiate from ordinary glasses eventually. But companies like putting their brands on things, so that may not end up being an issue.
And there have been illicit versions of these things for ages and that isn’t going to go away just because it’s illegal to wear it. It’s already illegal to do a lot of the things people are using them for that you’re likely worried about. Having an additional law for possession is not going to change that very much and definitely won’t balance out the harm caused by disallowing all cameras in public.
If you ban smart glasses because of the camera, then you have to ban phones and that was tried and failed in most places.
A few years ago, some venues here in Copenhagen, Denmark started banning phones, i.e. you would have to place your phone into a small, locked bag for the duration of the show and then when you left the venue, you could unlock the bag and use your phone again. I think that was perfectly allowed.
There are many places that have those rules as I mentioned. For private property, it’s not uncommon, but mostly only in secure locations that you buy tickets or otherwise pay or that have other restrictions to enter. Especially artistic venues where artists don’t want their works recorded. This is mostly for protecting financial interests over privacy, though. It’s not common for stores, gyms, and other locations that are open to the public, even if on private property, where taking photos isn’t a financial concern of the location. That’s pretty rare because it was too difficult to convince people to leave behind their phones or trust a worker to keep track of who’s phone is whose, so it kept people from coming to those places. Instead people often voluntarily keep their phones secure in lockers or keep them in their pockets or otherwise don’t take them out in plain view due to social pressure for privacy, especially in public showers, bathrooms, and changing rooms which were the places some politicians insisted it would end up being a major issue without laws.
Wear them and see if you get arrested
