alt.hn

6/12/2026 at 4:41:16 PM

New privacy frontier: Europe eyes crackdown on smart glasses

 https://www.politico.com/www.politico.eu/article/new-privacy-frontier-europe-eyes-crackdown-smart-glasses/

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

6/12/2026 at 6:15:49 PM

> The internal memo from Meta’s Reality Labs notes that the current situation in the U.S was good timing for the feature’s release.

> “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” says the document.

https://www.biometricupdate.com/202602/meta-plans-launch-of-...

by haxiomic

6/12/2026 at 8:41:01 PM

So they have maybe 3 years of fun before regulations return. Never miss an opportunity to be evil, I guess. Hopefully in 2029 they can be fined for all of the money they end up making from this.

by tencentshill

6/12/2026 at 9:04:19 PM

By who?

It will be explained very concisely to the next President how much soft power and security comes from having access to that Meta…data…and the train will be allowed to continue as-is for 15+ years.

Then they’ll make a big multi-year show of going after them on paper, the way that’s happening with Google.

by DANmode

6/12/2026 at 7:24:16 PM

That's so fucking cynical. I cannot imagine how bad the internal culture has to be for such a thing to be said so openly

by dgellow

6/12/2026 at 9:14:02 PM

A video I saw on social media concludes that this is a product of a misogynistic company.

Couldn't agree more.

by netsharc

6/12/2026 at 8:39:10 PM

It is so sad. Money always wins.

by nicce

6/12/2026 at 9:08:20 PM

I want to see the original memo just so I can put a name and a face to the utter ghoul responsible.

by bigfatkitten

6/12/2026 at 11:30:28 PM

Just go to LinkedIn and check out the folks working at Meta.

Close enough.

by DANmode

6/12/2026 at 8:18:38 PM

I’m actually glad they say the quiet part out loud. Leaves no room for doubt about their nature.

by WesolyKubeczek

6/12/2026 at 8:47:35 PM

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuckerberg: Just ask

Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.

Zuckerberg: I don't know why.

Zuckerberg: They "trust me"

Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks

    Instant messages sent by Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days, reported by Business Insider (May 13, 2010)

by snthd

6/12/2026 at 5:46:27 PM

I do photography as a hobby, especially street photography and related styles, and I constantly question myself on the ethics of photographing people in public without permission, even with my huge ass camera. Meanwhile, we have people running spy cameras in their glasses, and they view that as just a normal thing to do. What.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 6:47:07 PM

Exactly.

The problem with photo since the birth of social media is that it's permanently stored in the internet, literally.

Photos used to be personal and (mostly) temporary. I may take a photo in public, develop, then share with the close ones and store in the photo book. Photo may be somehow passed onto others but likely thrown away eventually when I become less of importance to them, and it'll worn out.

With photos now uploaded to social media or the "cloud", they exist permanently as a means of backups, sold to 3rd party (knowingly or unknowingly) analyzed to "improve the experience of the platform".

by jameson

6/12/2026 at 6:56:28 PM

That permanence is a bit of a myth. Bit rot is as real as physical one. At least four cloud storages (Bitcasa, hubiC, Ubuntu One, Cyphertite) I’ve used in the past are gone.

by drdaeman

6/13/2026 at 6:34:16 AM

I want to emphasize "unknowingly" part. Once data is uploaded to an entity, there's no guarantee they'll manage is properly.

User agreements change constantly, engineers make mistake, firms get liquidated and data might get sold, and most importantly, as a former employee of social media firms, what the firms say about the user privacy publicly is very different inside.

by jameson

6/12/2026 at 7:56:17 PM

But it has potential to be permanent through the means of other people storing copies of it. If you send a photo via WhatsApp to someone, for example, that photo is by default saved automatically to their phone, and potentially synced to their Google Photos.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 7:33:53 PM

You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. It is completely legal to film someone on the street.

This is important for other reasons, as it is the same law that allows you to film cops.

by Legend2440

6/12/2026 at 7:46:05 PM

In America. That is not true for all other countries.

And in even more countries it is legal to film, but it's not legal to send that footage back to Meta's servers for use in LLM training.

by drawfloat

6/12/2026 at 9:16:42 PM

And in even even more countries, it's actually perfectly fine to do any of that.

In before your definition of the world is a handful of tiny white countries

by drstewart

6/13/2026 at 5:00:20 AM

We’re talking about Europe. The context of this entire article is Europe.

by drawfloat

6/12/2026 at 7:44:28 PM

This seems like a US-centric view, because "it is NOT completely legal to film someone on the street" in the european country I live.

by whilenot-dev

6/12/2026 at 9:14:13 PM

I love how Europeans claim they aren't one country but then refuse to specify where they're from.

Anyway that sounds like a very specific view only in your country since it's completely fine in the North American country in which I live.

by drstewart

6/13/2026 at 6:34:41 AM

With a bit of clicking around you could easily find out to which country I'm referring to. I know neighboring countries have similar rulings, so how does that really change anything?

GP made some US-centric statements in, absolute form, in a thread about initiatives from the European legislature... make it make sense, please. As EU citizen I don't yearn for inspiration from the US legal system when it comes to matters of privacy. The rights to privacy of any individual shouldn't be waved aside just because they happen to be situated in public space.

by whilenot-dev

6/12/2026 at 10:03:25 PM

He did not said it is true in every single EU country. He said it is false in his one.

He also said it is US-centric view. Which it is. Americans tend to think all the other countries are just little worst America or enemies. And get real angry when EU countries dont just project simplified American politics, but have their own equally complex one.

by watwut

6/13/2026 at 8:59:36 AM

Nothing in the original post mentioned the US.

Germans all think this way. What a German-centric view. Germans tend to think anything they don't do is just America-centric. And get real angry when other countries dont just have the same German views, but have ones that may be closer to America.

by drstewart

6/12/2026 at 11:24:05 PM

What you have a reasonable expectation of is decided by society, not some unmoving law of physics.

A country could very easily decide you do have the right to go outside without creeps recording you with spy glasses.

by Gigachad

6/13/2026 at 6:38:30 PM

Or it could also decide that you can add a digital eye to your existing two bio eyes without being called a creep and thrown in jail or issued a fine for wanting to remember something or getting assisted with something.

by lostmsu

6/12/2026 at 7:40:29 PM

law != ethics

by fusslo

6/12/2026 at 8:08:46 PM

"remember, we have a legal system, not a justice system"

by m463

6/13/2026 at 6:41:44 PM

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike."

by lostmsu

6/12/2026 at 7:41:07 PM

It's actually country specific, you don't have a universal rule that you can legally record people in public

by dgellow

6/12/2026 at 8:21:09 PM

In some jurisdictions, it depends. You may film “a street”, and people go into and out of the frame all the time, and it’s okay. But if you take a random passerby and make them the focus of your recording, you may run into problems.

by WesolyKubeczek

6/12/2026 at 7:53:15 PM

As someone already said, I am not talking about legality, but about ethics.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 6:04:33 PM

I wonder how many surveillance cameras are currently in operation.

by Jblx2

6/12/2026 at 6:11:06 PM

While they are a problem, they are a different problem from spy cameras capturing you up close for the benefit of a single person. Surveillance cameras are for shady governments and maybe "security", camera glasses are for straight up creeps.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 8:09:35 PM

That has already been normalized. This is different. sigh.

by m463

6/12/2026 at 8:32:57 PM

When things were on NVRs only some personnel had access to them and they typically rotated fate out every 30 days by default. Importantly they were not interconnected. They were their own silos. Now they are all tied in to central services and people with the right access can pull up anything from any of the devices regardless how irrelevant they are to an investigation.

The main problem is the interconnectedness.

They are realizing Hayden’s wet dream of total surveillance.

by mc32

6/12/2026 at 6:54:45 PM

And we're already seeing a tonne of creepy bastards harassing women using the glasses and they have no recourse because "public place". They should be outright banned imo. I see no benefit to them and I genuinely cannot see the day everyone is running around wearing the same few brands of glasses because they provide that much value. I had to wear regular glasses for a few years and they were a pain in the ass. I'm not doing that voluntarily so I can see live ads and reviews as I walk past restaurants.

by basisword

6/12/2026 at 6:05:10 PM

Hell, I (like anyone else) grab photos with my phone on vacation, and when I take a picture of a busy market, I do my best to avoid including people in my photographs.

People in places I visit are just trying to live their lives, they aren't some kind of human zoo for me.

by vkou

6/12/2026 at 6:16:40 PM

Yeah, someone giving me even the slightest hint of being uncomfortable already makes me instantly delete their photo. Like, I want to photograph the public without ruining spontaneous moments, but I don't want to make others uncomfortable or mad at me because of my photographs.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 6:04:40 PM

Glasses’ camera [usually] sits right next to couple more cameras embedded in wearer’s skull. [Almost] nobody has any problem with those.

That strongly suggests me it’s not the cameras that are problematic, but something about what happens to the images.

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 6:07:22 PM

Most people understand that the difference between your camera and your eyes is that one records an image, while the other records a very rough description of an image.

by vkou

6/12/2026 at 6:10:05 PM

I don’t know how I could’ve made it even more obvious that cameras themselves don’t record anything.

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 6:12:12 PM

I guess people wearing spy camera glasses won't do anything at all with the images! /s

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 6:15:36 PM

My point is, people point at the camera but have actual issues with some potential capabilities of a system that’s not the camera itself but way downstream of it.

Can we please learn to point at correct things? I honestly don’t know what wrong with everyone. It’s like when people have issues with building permits and utility pricing but blame “AI” or “data centers” instead.

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 6:19:22 PM

They are not exactly potential capabilities, but real capabilities already being used by people like obnoxious TikTokers to record them harassing people in public places without the person realizing they are being recorded.

If you need to put a camera on glasses for a legitimate reason, such as a device purely for accessibility, then you should be able to get an exception, of course.

by hootz

6/12/2026 at 6:30:16 PM

“Potential” in a sense wearer’s actions are necessary to cause harm. Or vendor’s, for other risk scenarios. One has to not just have a camera but have that camera recording to a persistent medium and - most importantly - be an asshole to publish that recording inappropriately. That’s a few active steps away from having a camera.

> then you should be able to get an exception, of course

Of course not. Not when everyone reacts to the cameras themselves instead of TikTok uploads and whatever people are doing.

I just want legislation to ban the latter (as the actual harmful thing) and not the former (then maybe allow it on some sort of permit). But I’m sure it’ll be the opposite.

Which pisses me off because as a person who has difficulty with faces, for almost my whole adult life I’ve dreamed about a wearable that could make me aware when I see a person I know as I pass by (my brain doesn’t do that on its own). Strictly on-device, zero retention, no transmission, sure - I won’t buy e.g. Meta glasses or whatever until I know I can hack them to do the right thing. But of course there’ll be an argument that others aren’t supposed to know what my devices are doing, so ban them just in case because they make people uncomfortable.

We’re literally saying the same thing, pointing that the issue is with something that happens with the images/videos (TikToks)…

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 7:39:34 PM

> a wearable that could make me aware when I see a person I know as I pass by (my brain doesn’t do that on its own)

You can do that, just ask people for consent to be recorded/taken a picture

by dgellow

6/12/2026 at 8:18:25 PM

> consent to be recorded/taken a picture

Taking a reference face image for vectorization - certainly. If I'll have a wearable device, I wouldn't mind asking, even explaining the setup, risk assessment, and so on. Right now I apologize that I would most likely not remember person's face anyway. Although I shouldn't have to because you don't have to do it for functionally 100% equivalent thing with your eyes.

Continuously scanning faces for matches against a private library, on device, zero transmissions and everything decent and respectful - how do you imagine consenting? A balloon above my head with a banner that goes like "sorry folks the meat in my head is wacky, so there's a machine that eyeballs y'all - no recordings, just some real-time processing that doesn't transmit or long-term store any results"? Even something like that probably won't cut it for a consent.

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 10:15:40 PM

Yeah, definitely difficult to envision how something like that would work if you have live crowd processing. FWIW someone close to me has a similar problem, I’ve seen how annoying it can be. I can see how a wearable would help but anything with cameras is causing friction with people expectation of privacy. I don’t know the correct way to balance that in your case, other than explicitly asking for consent before recording

by dgellow

6/13/2026 at 1:39:15 AM

To reiterate, my suggestion is to ignore the cameras and just focus on regulation and prohibition of actually harmful activities - that is, publication without depicted persons explicit consent. If some tiktok shitheads abuse the public trust and upload derogatory videos - fine them into selling those glasses and then some, duh. Make that a very public case to send a "we don't tolerate this" message to others. This focuses and addresses actual, real issues, and leaves legitimate use cases unhindered.

That said, I understand that people subconsciously flinch at even a sight of a camera. I've had a guest wearing Meta glasses just the other day, and I felt a little irk - despite having a pro-camera position (although to be precise my concern there was with Meta, not the glasses themselves). Worse, it turned out that guest was a victim of domestic abuse, so they have an arguably good reason to have a camera ready at a glance.

Weird world, weird times.

by drdaeman

6/12/2026 at 6:06:38 PM

There's a mad dash right now. Everyone is sprinting as fast as possible to invent and propagate the worst technology possible. Oh, you thought smart phones ruined society? Well good news, smart glasses are finally viable. You just won't believe what they'll come up with next, and everyone will buy it, and everyone will be worse off.

by everdrive

6/12/2026 at 6:58:35 PM

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

Meta: We created the portable Occular Torment Nexus. We believe you should always be present in the Nexus, even with others around you. And thanks to our partnership with Popular Glasses Company, you can be tormented in style!

by NBJack

6/12/2026 at 5:41:25 PM

I hope Europe does this for real. I’m wondering how this privacy nightmare is eroding our standards so easily.

I certainly see the potential use of such - but the risks coming with such glasses at least in my opinion outweigh these uses..

Pleas, EU, ban this! Iirc there are already spy cams banned anyway in Germany, this should fall into the same category

by doubtfuluser

6/12/2026 at 7:43:27 PM

The EU (i.e some EU politicians) is considering regulating them, not a full ban

by dgellow

6/12/2026 at 7:40:38 PM

This is the laziest possible implementation of smart glasses.

What I want is an overlay that gives you useful information about the world. Like you're looking at a store shelf and it tells you if the price is low or high compared to other stores in the area. Or you're fixing your car and it shows the steps you need to execute.

A camera recording is neither smart nor useful IMO.

by Legend2440

6/12/2026 at 7:59:36 PM

> A camera recording is neither smart nor useful IMO.

It's very useful for big brother Zuckerberg though.

by stymaar

6/12/2026 at 6:11:47 PM

Why are we even allowing this in Europe? These smart glasses are just plain data collection and surveillance in plain sight. When does the nightmare stop?

by whiplash451

6/12/2026 at 6:59:36 PM

The EU's tech laws have some good parts and some bad parts. If this goes through, I personally will consider it a very good part.

by red_admiral

6/12/2026 at 10:22:19 PM

I got sent to immigration secondary while crossing the border in Amsterdam earlier this week because they were worried I was taking videos of their “military object” with my meta glasses. They told me to take them off while i’m at the airport.

This is so silly — they only record when you press a button, not continuously, and they can only record for like 3 mins max and there’s a light that indicates to everyone around you when they are recording.

Meanwhile there’s a bunch of people in line with their phones out, which do not indicate when the camera is on. But somehow that’s different.

It’s a bummer because they’re great for taking family photos/videos. Also great as an Airpods replacement. A little flimsy but the tech is 90% there.

I wish Apple made them instead of Meta — I think they’d do a better job of bringing them to the market while maintaining public trust.

by petethepig

6/12/2026 at 5:34:08 PM

Good. Finally. These never should have even been prototyped. Fool of an idea.

by rimbo789

6/12/2026 at 6:55:12 PM

To you, sure. Meanwhile I have about 7 legitimate uses, almost all of them involving recording things down in mines while I need both hands free to keep myself from dying.

You stay in your bubble if it makes you uncomfortable. Real people have real uses for this tech, whether you like it nor not.

by lightedman

6/12/2026 at 7:16:41 PM

You can't use a GoPro or one of the many body cameras where it is clearly obvious to everyone who sees you that you:

(a) Have a camera (b) Are recording?

by adithyareddy

6/12/2026 at 9:11:58 PM

What a silver lining... "oh this date rape drug works great as an animal tranquilizer and I need it at my farm! Don't ban it!"

by netsharc

6/12/2026 at 7:46:05 PM

I agree, I think people are being far too cynical.

It's just like AI, people discount the positives and magnify the negatives.

by Legend2440

6/12/2026 at 11:19:48 PM

<--- Who are these people. It's like they are from a different planet.

by bubblegumcrisis

6/12/2026 at 7:14:59 PM

almost all of them involving recording things down in mines

How are the glasses more beneficial than the far, far more durable helmet-mounted cameras that construction workers use, or the industrial-grade chest-mounted cameras used in many other industries?

Also, how well do the glasses function underground? Are there pico cells down there to provide connectivity?

by reaperducer

6/12/2026 at 8:00:06 PM

I've long since given up on seeing thoughtful policy space discussion, here or anywhere, but I see drdaeman's 'I need assistance in recognizing faces' being downvoted here today, so briefly...

Europe and the US have had different legal perspectives on public photography, and each has had both costs and benefits. Perhaps those contrasts could help inform discussion.

As with any tech in its infancy, thought experiments might illuminate options. I suspect few here would object to a camera feeding only a chip which outputs only hand pose for gestural UI. What if that chip output a facial UID, for help with 'hey, that's someone I know', and that UID was transient and never left the glasses? What if that UID was sent to Meta for arbitrary monitization? If the last two drew different answers, then perhaps the downvoted suggestion to regulate the use, not the camera, might deserve discussion.

Notable elephants in the room include: Trust - with societal lying normalized, and misrepresentation pervasive in policy discourse, it's not unreasonable to suggest that we're societally incapable of regulating use, so broad prohibitions are the only policy tool available. Imperial conservative stagnation - as with drone's "yes it could be an economically transformative technology, and a militarily critical industry, but at every stage of its exploration, it must be perfectly safe(tm)!" (the emph bit heard here on HN) - turning your back on modernization and reform has consequences when you have rival states. Privilege - having done dementia caregiving, there are lots of people whose lives would be profoundly improved by having ride-along see-what-they-see AI companions - "Did I have dinner? Yes, 10 minutes ago. You had X. Maybe you'd like a snack of Y to get more protein?" - even a valid claim of "this tech would hurt me" deserves a pause for "but how might it help others?".

I wish we had some social tech to facilitate doing better at this kind of discussion.

by mncharity

6/12/2026 at 8:27:36 PM

What if that chip output a facial UID, for help with 'hey, that's someone I know'

what if i don't want to be recognized by you? or by anyone else? the problem is not that it allows some people to recognize me. the problem is that it allows everyone to identify everyone else at scale.

if this tool can help someone because they have a medical condition then we can make these devices specifically available for them. that's just like allowing support animals in places where animals are not usually allowed to be.

by em-bee

6/12/2026 at 9:55:23 PM

I like the "service animal" analogy. But it's not that easy to escape the ethical fork/tradeoff, as the breeding of universal companions would be far better resourced than that of service animals. Then it's not "only some people are allowed to have cell phones", it's more "we'll ban cell phones and if someone really really has needs, we'll let them have a milk-carton brick of a radio telephone", with an implicit "and that will be good enough for them".

by mncharity

6/12/2026 at 8:45:40 PM

Smart Glasses are for creepy men who want to make pictures of women without their consent in secret. I hope these glasses will be banned.

  Lawmaker Cifrová Ostrihoňová said that, from a gender-based violence perspective, it is "simply unacceptable for any woman to worry about being filmed in public secretly and then worry about those images being shared online.”
100% this

by louwrentius

6/12/2026 at 9:19:52 PM

[flagged]

by drstewart

6/12/2026 at 9:39:54 PM

On the other hand if I am interacting with the government persons I very much like it to be automatically recorded just in case. fuck never mind government, when I deal with the companies / services I may want to record the whole thing as well

by FpUser

6/12/2026 at 5:53:24 PM

The one thing I appreciate about smart glasses is that it broadcasts the wearer's terrible personality loud and clear and I can thus avoid them.

by thatmf

6/12/2026 at 5:41:41 PM

Smart glasses are for citizens, not subjects.

by Claudus

6/12/2026 at 6:06:21 PM

Citizens have responsibilities to their society, not just the right to be assholes.

by vkou