Pub giant Wetherspoon has announced a ban on Ray-Ban Meta glasses across all its establishments, including dozens in the North East. The decision, made this week, affects every Wetherspoon pub in the region and beyond.
What Are Ray-Ban Meta Glasses?
The Ray-Ban Meta Glasses are wearable cameras with a small lens in one corner of the frames capable of taking high-quality pictures and videos. They hit the market in 2023, and new expansions to the line-up have seen them explode in popularity. While a small light comes on to indicate recording, people don't always notice they're being recorded.
Wetherspoon's Stance
Wetherspoon's chief executive, Tim Martin, 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.” He added that the changes are "akin to our efforts to stop audible playing of videos in our pubs, which also invades people’s space."
If you're wearing the glasses as you enter a Wetherspoon establishment, you'll be asked to turn them off.
Privacy Concerns and Criticism
The use of these recording devices is common in public, with some choosing to upload videos online. News outlets have covered their use in the "exploitative" filming of vulnerable people on the streets of Newcastle. Critics believe the lack of consent for the videos, particularly if the person is intoxicated and unable to give it, is a safeguarding issue.
ChronicleLive covered a petition aimed at banning the recording devices on Newcastle's streets, with the description on Change.org stating: "No one should be filmed while in distress, intoxicated, sleeping rough, or experiencing a mental health crisis. These individuals deserve safeguarding, privacy, and dignity. Not public humiliation for entertainment."
Meta's Response
When asked about the limitations of a Meta Glasses wearer filming someone without their consent, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at Meta, stated in a previous interview: "AI glasses have cameras in them, and right here you can see that there's a little light that lights up if someone is actually filming. So we can't stop people from filming other people, but we can try to make sure that the light is on if they are filming. We now actually have the glasses basically stop working if you drill that light out, because we saw that people were trying to drill that light out. Plus, 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. We don't want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we're trying to fight that every way we can."
