HMCTS Bans Meta Smart Glasses From England, Wales Courtrooms

Meta's smart glasses just got a UK courthouse problem. His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, per Guardian reporting relayed by Engadget, said anyone trying to bring the glasses into a criminal, civil or family court in England and Wales will have them confiscated at the door and returned on the way out. Phones remain allowed on the honor system that they will not be used to record; wearables get no such benefit of the doubt.

The distinction is the interesting part. Courtroom camera rules have existed for decades but leaned on a social assumption: a person raising a phone is visibly recording, and a bailiff can intervene. Meta's glasses collapse that assumption. An HMCTS spokesperson said "There are clear restrictions on taking images or videos within courts and tribunals which is why the use of Meta glasses is prohibited."

A specific incident sits behind the policy. A London court dealt with a man accused of being "assisted or coached in his replies to questions put to him during cross examination" while wearing smart glasses, though the claimant denied it. The audio channel, not just the camera, is what makes the wearable form factor uniquely awkward in a setting where witnesses are supposed to answer on their own.

The move fits a growing pattern of venue-level rules for always-on cameras that runs through our surveillance tracker, which has logged 53 stories in the last 90 days. New York has already announced a comparable courtroom ban for similar reasons. Engadget's write-up does not spell out how court security is expected to distinguish Meta's glasses from ordinary eyewear at intake, nor whether the ban covers other smart-eyewear brands, and Meta declined to comment.

For everyone else, from hospitals to exam boards to corporate boardrooms, HMCTS has just written a template. The regulated-venue playbook for wearable cameras is starting to look less like "please don't record" signage and more like coat check.