These kind of blanket bans are going to pose some real problems for the tech because people who wear prescription glasses will often get their prescription built in. So you can't take them off - you need them to see. And then there is another subset of blind and deaf users who are even more dependent on them. What are these people going to do once there are a non-trivial amount of places banning you from wearing them at all?
I think the tech industry is far behind the eight ball on this. To their credit Meta actually did a half decent job out of the gate designing sensor-gated recording lights into the Raybans. But it's not enough. There needs to be an industry wide agreement on a standard where something like a bluetooth beacon can shut off recording. Then maybe you have a chance of this category not becoming Google Glass 2.0. Otherwise I'm struggling to see how this ship won't sink.
> From then on, any eyewear with video and audio recording capability will be forbidden in all of the First Judicial District buildings, courthouses, or offices, even for people who have a prescription. Other devices with recording capabilities like cell phones and laptops continue to be allowed inside courtrooms but must be powered off and stowed away.
It's defined as having recording capability, which is quite a reasonable restriction to make, IMO.
Which is sort of my point: when main purpose is convenience, if you have to do something inconvenient to use it then you killed the thing altogether. So if manufacturers want this to fly, they need to sort out the privacy question before there's a sign on every public place saying "no recording glasses". If I was in Meta's position, i'd be going to regulators to ban glasses without an externally controlled hard shutoff mechanism.
It might seem a trivial thing currently, but some of these factors will be the ultimate determinants of exactly how much utility humans can get out of AI. If it can't see what you can see, it can't help you with that.
> There needs to be an industry wide agreement on a standard where something like a bluetooth beacon can shut off recording.
Yes, this is a great idea. Hardware hackers can then quickly clone these beacons and spam $5 glass hole blockers everywhere.
Funny. Because UV-activated darkening lenses inevitably fail in a half-darkened state, I have a pair of always-dark prescription sunglasses and prescription -er- clearglasses. I can tell you from personal experience that it's inconvenient to carry both and swap between the two as my location and the time of day changes, and yet... somehow there's still a solid market for always-dark prescription eyeglasses.
Weird, innit?
It's not just that they don't want to piss off the lawyers. If they don't provide a private location, then they may be forced to take continuances and recesses so those conversations can happen elsewhere as a condition of not infringing on the constitutional right to effective counsel.
Prosecutors will take breaks in their offices within the same building while the defense has to leave the building in order to have a private conversation, that sounds totally fair and reasonable.
There's no leadership to curtail asinine behavior. Instead of forces of nature to strengthen the status quo of freedom, we get lowly politicians. Judges end up having to do all the work.
The article says "any eyewear with video and audio recording capability" which makes sense. Although even that is unreasonably specific and should just say "recording or transmission device" to ban the activity and not the item.
That said, get caught misusing such an exemption and you will be hauled in for direct contempt. No big trial. No witnesses. Just the judge ordering you into 30 days custody.
Meta is likely to use material from these spy devices to build real world networks and use it commercially.
These "glasses" should be outlawed. The only useful purpose is to immediately identify the wearer as an asshole.
// https://www.ifixit.com/News/113543/theres-groundbreaking-wav...
Before the court makes you shut off your Android device.
An ios BT detector might also work.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.ne...
The law mandates that any "secret" recording is illegal. This is different from the usual standard, which is whether someone is recording people who are in a place where they have an expectation of privacy or not.
It doesn't matter if you're on the street, in someone's home, a courtroom. A tiny little LED doesn't rectify that. Nobody expects someone's eyeglasses to be recording them.
Massachusetts (only "secret" recordings are banned, but is the only state without a "public location" exception. Despite having a 1968 law imposing general bans on taping wire and oral communications, it was later ruled to violate the First Amendment in the conditions espoused in a case filed by Project Veritas in 2018.)
This also be more related to recording phone calls and specific conversations.
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
It appears to be more nuanced than "you can't walk around with a camera recording in Massachusetts."
Isn't it fair to stand to your own principles even if others are moving in a different direction?
Meta Glasses are a hit in the blind community (for obvious reasons). Things will really come to a head when we finally get working face recognition tech.
I wonder if this law could be challenged on ADA reasonable accommodation grounds.
Those devices are already not banned.
Unless you have a homelab (which is just cloud under a different name), there's no way of doing a reasonable job here without sending your data to a third party.
In this case, preserving privacy and anti-discrimination are goals that you just can't reconcile.
Absolutely fuck these things and anyone who advocates for them. No exceptions.
> reasonably affordable and available smart glasses have finally begun catching on within the last year.
Also, no they haven't.
Of course this has changed drastically, but CCTV basically got grandfathered in in most people's minds.
What cloud recording is capable of determining... is absolutely limitless. I think this is what makes Flock so scary / "different."
Glassholes are new. We can tell when someone is trying to film eleven year olds in a public swimming pool but this is the new frontier.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/18/disturbing-r...
Since fighting government is extremely hard, lets tackle lower hanging fruit above first and try for the best case scenario later. Also, government can claim its primarily for security, whether true or not depends on the case but private folks can hardly claim that.
As a general statement about the law this is not correct. And that’s even before we get to the next paragraph where you just wildly speculate and use that as buttressing the already false premise.
Likewise, journalistic photographs (for commercial use) are legal and don't require releases or compensation for people who are part of the scene.
https://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf (note the credentials in the lower right corner - and if you want to know more I'd suggest https://www.krages.com/bpkphoto.htm )
The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place or places where they have permission to take photographs. Absent a specific legal prohibition such as a statute or ordinance, you are legally entitled to take photographs. Examples of places that are traditionally considered public are streets, sidewalks, and public parks.I'm no expert, but I believe national security SCIFs use technology that blocks recording.
but this is impossible to guarantee as well
It's not very different from smartphone. But now instead of modem you have nn "firmware" with broad capabilities to warn privacy and ethics police when you are out of line. Recording in the wrong place, or looking at a crime and not reporting. "Off mode" won't fly for a gun, and your implant threatens children, so I don't believe this could be delegated to the user.
This module is formally called "conscience" and fortunately, at this time, is securely sandboxed to not directly communicate with any device or service outside of the body.
Here's a dude from 3 years ago adding a flashlight: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/yblzi4/g...
And I'm pretty sure I saw one who added a laser to theirs for raves, but can't find the link :)
You can buy very very tiny cameras today off the shelf, the main problem would be just packaging either a storage medium or wireless transfer capability + power inside the eye. With government-level budgets it's doable, possibly even by a skilled maker with resources.
Idk, I think this is like, maybe 5 years in the future
But the bigger thing is: why would you want to get disqualified from one of your biggest civic duties?
It's also important to consider that while many places have some legal framework along the lines of "no reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces," there's a social-psychological gap between that and the presumption of being constantly recorded, be it by other private individuals or governments.
Because of this, my view on this technology is that it's a net negative in society, and generally unhealthy.
But as a privacy-conscious developer, I want exactly zero connection to any FAANG cloud service in my smart classes.
So until someone releases a pair of smart glasses I can get with my prescription and, for example, use my phone for "local" compute with no forced cloud access, I'm going to skip the whole category.
For example, there's no reasonable expectation that singing to myself in public won't be recorded.
But almost everyone in public does reasonably-assume that their every step isn't being permanently logged by a stalking drone swarm.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/workers-report-watch...
Like Star Trek holodecks. They seem amazing at first, but only because the weirdest it ever got was a sweaty Lt. Barclay, a creepy Cmdr. LaForge, and a safe-for-TV sleazeball named Quark.
In reality, if you could "jack in" to a self-controlled Matrix, or walk onto a holodeck and make anything you wanted feel real, it would be 24/7, 100% the unhealthiest invention since the nuclear weapon.
The entire society in Star Trek has moved beyond greed and sadism.
I'd imagine already if not soon we'll have small speech-to-text models that can run in realtime.
Never willingly played a team sport again.
Nobody considered that when the laws were written but we live in a world of billion dollar drug cartels.
But I imagine even these rooms are cammed, and lip reading is a thing
Sure, it would be great if we could have nice things like that, but all too often we need to work with the infrastructure we have.
If your walking stick has a sword in it like the old spy movies, you won't be getting accommodated either. You'll be getting a loaner or a wheelchair.
It occurs to me that the existence of paparazzi seems to be evidence against your position.
Something with open-ish hardware running Linux without any specific blocks on installing your own software on it.
I saw them advertised "With microphone" or something recently, which led me to assume that was a 'feature' of this model...but you know advertising
But yes I've done this with all my ring cameras, they were still the old type. One of them was a bitch to open up though (the indoor one IIRC)
Blending into rush hour foot traffic is easy, and I never feel like I stand out enough to attract attention... though in the back of my head, I know that most commercial and government properties have some form of video surveillance, probably backed by some kind of (hopefully coarse) AI subject tagging.
No opinion on the decision from OP's post, just noting that, privacy is getting 86'd six ways to Sunday. All that's left are truly owned homes and natural spaces, and Orwell laid the pattern for both.
A bit "meta" here, but this was never about surrendering to advancing capability, humans have been capable of eavesdropping ever since eaves were invented, people could bring hidden microphones and cameras in "private" spaces for decades, etc.
The "reasonable expectation" doesn't come from our fears of the worst, or else it would be meaninglessly permissive. Rather, it's an attempt to judge individual situations based on some kind of collective agreement about normality. Just because we can't preemptively block something doesn't mean it cannot be a crime.
In other words, we (should) have a lot more power to decide what they become than that. Supposing--and I'm not endorsing this--anyone caught recording in public typically gets their stuff smashed by an angry mob, then the "reasonable expectation" is that you're not being recorded.
He was definitely filming everyone without our consent.
* a negative is: the opportunities to enjoy oneself have sadly diminished...do one 'strange' thing in public, and you're on the web.
The best way to do this would be how Google solved this with street view. Capture your public photos, blur out people's faces - better yet, respect their privacy if someone requests to not film them. Eg. Google Street view will blur out complete homes if you decide to opt out.
A lot of people have done this, because at that point it's consciously making a decision to be an asshole and violating someone's privacy. The laws may not be on the side of the guy who hits the TikToker - and that's what they capitalize on, but morally, the guy throwing the punch would be in the right. It also depends on where you live, I guess. TikTokers don't normally do such stuff in Asia because you can go to the cops and file assault, but when they find out you were being the douche, they will not take any action.
because jury duty pays like 2 dollars an hour and I gotta eat. I know lots of folks on this website are relatively well off, but the entire country doesn't make 6 figures
That's also not the typical reason people want out of jury duty. Most people are just lazy, not actually at risk of economic hardship from it.
Also grand jury duty can be something like six months (may not be every day depending on jurisdiction. Federal may be even longer. Probably no company will keep paying you for that length of time even if you squeeze in some work nights and weekends.
Because jury duty does not pay enough to put a roof over one’s head and food on the table?
And the only reason people even care about being on a jury is because we are threatened with state violence if we dont. Its not like they have to pay people fairly - they just threaten you with contempt of court and jail.
Money wouldn't solve everything, sure. But being paid $50/hr would greatly alleviate many problems.
(Basis and justification of jury nullification.)
Edit: Seriously, -1's? Given how many bad laws there are, judging the law first, then the defendant should be a given.
I wouldn’t have been fired (which seems a different case) but being largely unable to, say, make sales calls or other external activities for 6 months I would expect to have consequences even if just as simple as underforming my peers. Maybe a manager would understand and take it into account but I wouldn’t count on it. It doesn’t have to be blatant as in your example.
And the case upthread is obviously a retail manager being stupid but I also assume there is no obligation to pay hourly employees for hours they don’t work or for tips they didn’t collect.
Yep
> can take your PTO
You can, but if salaried you usually shouldn't, ignoring any particularly malicious employers and social contracts around the outskirts of the law.
> No obligation to pay hourly employees, tips, etc
Yeah, if you're not salaried you're screwed. PTO might cover a few days, but if you have a month-long trial and need money for rent then my understanding of the law is that serving as a juror will make you homeless unless the courtroom is willing to extend some compassion for your hardship.