Technology has a habit of arriving before society has worked out where and when it should be allowed. Meta’s smart glasses are just the latest particularly awkward example. 

Sure, they may look like ordinary Ray-Bans or Oakleys, but these futuristic specs contain cameras, microphones, and an AI assistant. That combination may be useful to social media influencers intent on streaming every moment of their day. In a workplace, however, these smart specs create a host of problems employers would be foolish to ignore.

Privacy is the primary concern. A management meeting, disciplinary hearing, client conference, or factory floor all contain commercially sensitive information and personal data worthy of protection. But how do you protect such confidential conversations if you don’t know you’re being recorded? 

Meta glasses use a visible LED to indicate when photos or videos are being captured, and the company has introduced measures that disable the camera if that little light is tampered with. And yet some enterprising individuals have found ways to circumvent the indicator. 

The privacy risks are not hypothetical. In March, Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office began making enquiries of Meta after a Swedish investigation found some contractors reviewing footage from the glasses had encountered extraordinarily intimate material. 

According to The Register, reviewers working for Meta subcontractor Sama based in Kenya were able to view people getting dressed, using the toilet, and discussing deeply private matters, alongside images of personal documents and bank cards. For any private individual, the revelation is hugely worrying. For an employer, the alarm bells should be ringing. 

Imagine an employee inadvertently recording a colleague changing after a shift, a confidential HR conversation, a medical disclosure, or a confession of wrongdoing. Now imagine that footage later being uploaded, processed, or accessed by people far beyond the original workplace. 

Even if the recording was accidental, the consequences could be serious, as Arbor Law’s Clara Westbrook explains: “If personal data is captured and stored without people’s knowledge, that’s potentially unlawful processing under UK GDPR, and it can breach a company’s own confidentiality and IT policies. 

“It also creates a headache few organisations have thought through – footage sitting on someone’s wearable is personal data, too, and it could fall within scope of a subject access request. Employers need to get ahead of this now, not after something goes wrong.”

But perhaps the more troubling risk is deliberate misuse. Smart glasses could turn sexual harassment from an overt act into a more insidious form of covert surveillance. An employee intent on objectifying a colleague could record them without consent and later share the footage, potentially leaving the victim unaware they had been filmed at all.

Recent reporting has documented Meta-glasses users filming women without their knowledge for so-called “pickup” content later uploaded to social media. The problem is sufficiently widespread that the glasses have acquired an unflattering nickname: “perv glasses”.

In an office, the power imbalance makes such behaviour particularly sinister. Employers have duties to prevent sexual harassment; allowing an almost invisible recording device into the workplace risks making that obligation considerably harder to discharge. 

The sensible policy is therefore not to wait for a victim to discover they have been filmed, but to remove the opportunity to record in the first place. At the risk of being labelled a Luddite, businesses already routinely restrict devices that create security risks. Meta glasses arguably fall into that category.

And yet a blanket ban would ignore an important counterargument: for some disabled workers, smart glasses are not just the latest must-have gadget, but an accessibility tool. For the blind or visually impaired, the glasses can read text, recognise objects, describe surroundings, and translate signs, potentially making everyday tasks substantially easier. 

The benefits extend beyond sight loss: one user with muscular dystrophy who cannot use a smartphone told the Guardian that the glasses allow him to make calls, send messages, and take photographs – providing a degree of independence conventional workplace technology may not.

This creates a genuine dilemma for employers. A rule designed to protect employees from covert recording should not inadvertently make disabled workers choose between privacy and access to a tool that helps them work on equal terms. 

Perhaps the answer is not to permit unrestricted use. Allow workers with accessibility limitations the reasonable adjustment of wearing smart specs, while making it clear to the wider workforce that if the camera is on your face, it needs to stay outside.

Of course, as with most workplace policies, the challenge will be finding the right balance and enforcing it consistently and fairly.