Restaurants, pubs, and theatres across the UK are banning Meta's smart glasses, priced at £359, to protect customer and staff privacy. The devices, promoted by Kylie Jenner, resemble normal eyewear but contain tiny cameras, raising concerns about surreptitious filming.
Venues enforce bans
Jeremy King, owner of London venues including Simpsons in the Strand, Arlington, and The Park, said guests should not wear the recording glasses. He told the Guardian: "I would never knowingly allow any invasion of guest privacy other than with the eyes we were born with."
Soho House's private members' clubs will ask those wearing the glasses to remove them, as filming is not allowed in their venues. Pub chain Wetherspoons also prohibits recording with the glasses inside.
Tim Martin, Wetherspoons' chief executive, said: "The general code that applies in our pubs, and most pubs, is that you can't film customers or employees without their permission. Meta glasses seem to breach this code, and common sense, by enabling surreptitious surveillance, so our instinct is to say turn off the cameras. This is akin to our efforts to stop audible playing of videos in our pubs, which also invades people's space."
Theatre restrictions
ATG Theatres, which owns venues like the Bristol Hippodrome and Edinburgh Playhouse, will ask those wearing the glasses during shows to remove them, as filming is not allowed.
The glasses feature a fashionable cat-eye design by Jenner, with tiny cameras embedded. Meta says the design allows users to stay "in the moment" without constantly looking at a smartphone.
Privacy incidents and Meta's response
There have been multiple instances of people being filmed without consent, with footage posted on social media. In one case, a woman told the BBC a man recorded her and then demanded money to remove the videos. Another woman described being recorded during sexual encounters without her consent.
Instagram has cracked down on nonconsensual videos made using the glasses. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said: "If you're posting content that is taking advantage of people and harassing them, like a lot of these pickup line kind of videos that we've heard of and seen, then we're going to take the content down."
Meta has handed out free pairs to influencers, and sales have tripled in the last year, with over 7 million sold worldwide. Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge welcomed the glasses, saying: "I have no problem whatsoever with them. Filming is part of everyday life now. In fact I think that they can be used in creative and exciting ways. The first thought about them shouldn't be negative!"
A Meta spokesperson said: "People use our glasses because they're genuinely helpful – from listening to music, to live translation or hands-free calls. For those wearing them and the people around them, trust matters. That's why we built privacy into our AI glasses from the ground up. For example, every pair has a capture LED that blinks when you take a photo or video that you can save or share, it can't be turned off, and if someone covers or damages the LED, the camera is disabled."
