Meta’s Smart Glasses Launch Faces Major Hurdles

Across major cities like New York, London, and Washington, DC, activist groups have taken to the streets with satirical posters targeting Meta’s smart glasses. One cheeky ad dubs them “the biggest advancement in pervert technology since the trenchcoat,” while another overlays the phrase “mass surveillance predator glasses” on a photo of influencer Kylie Jenner, criticizing her role as a brand ambassador for the product.

The underlying message is unmistakable: these glasses could infringe on your privacy, and can we really trust Meta?

Meta appears to be feeling the heat. For a long time, the company’s approach to privacy with its smart glasses hinged on a single LED light and a vague guideline of “don’t be a jerk.” However, numerous incidents have surfaced over the past three years, with users filming others without consent, sometimes even with the LED light turned off. In a recent discussion, Meta’s VP of wearables, Alex Himel, admitted that the company has noticed an uptick in users tampering with the devices.

This prompted Meta to announce a mandatory software update that will disable the camera on all glasses if the privacy light is physically altered. Recently, the head of Instagram stated that the platform would remove videos captured with Meta’s glasses that show harassment. While this raises questions about content moderation, it’s a step in the right direction. The frustrating part is that Meta could have implemented these measures much earlier.

We can’t discuss the current landscape of smart glasses without recognizing that Meta has made some clever moves. Unlike the conspicuous Google Glass, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses are sleek and subtle. Bose was ahead of Meta in the audio glasses market, and Snap pioneered POV recording glasses for social media. Yet, Meta has successfully created stylish, affordable glasses by teaming up with EssilorLuxottica, a strategy that competitors like Google and Samsung are now mimicking with their own partnerships. While other companies may have introduced the concept of smart glasses, Meta has come closest to making them a mainstream product.

However, in recent months, Meta has stumbled significantly. Reports surfaced that the company was planning to introduce facial recognition technology for the glasses while privacy advocates were preoccupied. Another report revealed that Meta had quietly shipped this technology to existing glasses without activating it. Additionally, there are claims that Meta aims for these glasses to record continuously. Beyond these major issues, the company has also removed the option to opt out of voice recordings used for AI training. Executives have made tone-deaf comments, suggesting that those who avoid smart glasses will be at a “cognitive disadvantage.” Amid genuine privacy concerns stemming from misuse of the technology, Meta has also partnered with high-profile content creators like Kylie Jenner, a move that has drawn mixed reactions.

In isolation, a mistake or two can happen. But when a company repeatedly misses the mark, it starts to seem like they’re intentionally ignoring the core issues.

“You can’t base your entire privacy policy on a single light. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to be aware of that,” says Uttara Ananthakrishnan, a tech professor at the University of Washington who studies the impact of online interactions. “It places an unfair burden on those who aren’t even wearing the glasses to be vigilant about what someone else might do.”

Ananthakrishnan is doubtful that smart glasses will gain traction outside of specific work environments, not just due to social stigma but also because public sentiment towards Big Tech and online sharing has evolved. Meta’s executives often reference the early smartphone era to defend smart glasses, arguing that initial skepticism eventually gave way to accepted social norms. Ananthakrishnan disagrees.

“Tech companies are not viewed favorably right now. In our current social media landscape, where every action can have consequences, there’s a heightened awareness of the potential for misuse,” she explains. She also highlights that individual privacy concerns differ when it comes to the privacy of others.

Consider smartwatches. People may be willing to compromise their own health data privacy for personal benefits. However, if something goes wrong—like health data leaking to an employer—only they bear the consequences. With smart glasses, the dynamics shift; you risk infringing on others’ privacy, often without their consent.

So, can Meta—or any smart glasses manufacturer—win over a wary public? Or are their recent efforts simply too little, too late?

“There’s not much Meta can do to convince me they genuinely care about user privacy when their entire business model is built on invading it,” says Kendall Schrohe, executive director of an advocacy group involved in the anti-Meta glasses campaign. “At the end of the day, there’s nothing privacy-preserving about sunglasses with a built-in camera. This is surveillance technology, and no amount of tweaking changes that.”

Schrohe adds that Meta’s credibility is further compromised by reports of the company lobbying to weaken state privacy legislation.

“I think that moment has passed for them,” Ananthakrishnan agrees, noting that Meta has a poor track record of effectively communicating privacy policies. “Maybe Apple could pull it off, but I don’t think Google or Meta can, given their history. A statement saying, ‘We’re doing everything we can; here’s our privacy policy’ won’t reassure people.”

Without a significant shift in strategy, it will be challenging for Meta and Big Tech to alter the current narrative. It’s easy to imagine that some tech leaders might simply resign themselves to a surveillance-heavy future until external forces, like lawmakers and businesses, compel them to prioritize privacy.

But the reality is that all eyes are on Meta, the current frontrunner in this space, to see what move they make next. Sticking to the same approach will likely either hand the lead to Google or Apple or doom the concept of smart glasses altogether. If Meta hopes to have even a sliver of success, it must take a different path.