HMCTS bans Meta smart glasses from England and Wales courts

Court security in England and Wales has picked up a new item on the confiscation shelf. His Majesty's Courts & Tribunals Service has told the Guardian that Meta's smart glasses are now banned from all court buildings, and will be taken off visitors at the door and returned on the way out. "There are clear restrictions on taking images or videos within courts and tribunals which is why the use of Meta glasses is prohibited," an HMCTS spokesperson said.

The quirk is the asymmetry with smartphones. A phone in your pocket still gets in on condition you do not record with it, but the glasses get no such carve-out. The reason is the form factor: they capture footage without anyone in the room having to notice you doing it, which is exactly the property that made them a hit and awkward everywhere else. Engadget reported that Meta declined to comment on the ban.

The immediate prompt seems to have been a real courtroom moment, not a theoretical worry. Earlier this year, claimant Laimonas Jakštys was accused by judge Raquel Agnello KC of wearing smart glasses and receiving "coaching" through them while testifying about a property company directorship. Once a judge has articulated that suspicion on the record, a blanket policy is the tidy answer.

Plenty is still unsaid. HMCTS has not explained how door staff are meant to tell banned Meta frames from ordinary prescription eyewear, what the penalty is for a repeat offender, or whether rivals like Snap Spectacles fall under the same rule. New York courts brought in a similar ban in July, so at least the policy pattern is now cross-Atlantic.

For anyone building wearables aimed at enterprise or public-sector buyers, the practical read is that discreet capture as a feature is now a liability at the reception desk. Visible indicators, hardware camera switches, and enterprise SKUs with the cameras disabled will matter more than resolution or battery life.