Meta smart glasses' recording light 'easy to miss', Guardian says

Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses signal recording with a small white LED on the frame. In a new Guardian interactive that three researchers we track shared this week, the paper says the light is "easy to miss in daylight" and points to "a thriving grey market of modified glasses with the light disabled entirely."

Meta pitches the same device to parents with the slogan "Never miss a moment."

On its official Threads post, the Guardian summarises the situation bluntly: "Meta says safeguards are in place to prevent surreptitious filming, but some UK venues now prohibit them from being worn at all." The Guardian also cites a Swedish investigation which found footage from the glasses, "including intimate recordings from inside people's homes, was reviewed by outsourced contractors in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of training Meta's AI systems."

Critics quoted in the feature warn the technology "risks normalising constant surveillance before society has fully considered its consequences."