A German digital rights group has taken legal action against Meta and companies selling its AI-powered smart glasses, warning that the devices could make it easier to secretly record people and expose them online without their knowledge.
On Wednesday, a German digital rights group called HateAid took things a step further than just complaining online. They filed a formal criminal complaint against Meta, the makers of Ray-Ban, and several big retail chains. The paperwork went straight to a specialized digital crime unit in Frankfurt.
The core issue is the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer. It looks like normal sunglasses. But it has cameras built right into the frame.
Josephine Ballon, who runs HateAid, put the public anxiety into plain words.
“There’s no place to escape from smart glasses,” she said. “You have to expect at any moment to be filmed and then exposed on the internet.”
Germany has very strict rules about this kind of thing. A federal data protection law makes it illegal to sell devices built specifically to film people without them noticing. Back in late 2023, the country’s digital regulator warned that covert recording gear was banned.
But the reality on the ground is a bit messy.
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The Federal Network Agency has said it is watching the smart glasses market closely. However, it is not formally investigating any rule-breaking just yet. A spokesperson for the agency noted that selling the glasses is fine, as long as the recording function is clearly visible to others, like with a blinking light.
Whether that tiny light is actually enough for a stranger to notice on a busy sidewalk is a different story.
Mister Spex, one of the retailers named in the complaint, said it had not received any official notice yet but takes privacy seriously. It was not immediately clear how the other shops plan to handle the legal pressure.
For now, the glasses are still sitting on store shelves. But the line between a cool new piece of tech and a walking privacy violation is getting very thin, very fast.
