this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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Women in Brussels 'filmed without their knowledge' by men wearing Meta smart glasses (www.brusselstimes.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by arsCynic@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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“Experts in Europe warn that these devices are used to record strangers without their consent, possibly breaching EU law.”

“A small LED light is designed to indicate when recording is taking place, but RTBF's investigators found that tutorials explaining how to conceal the indicator are abundant and easily accessible online.”

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding who I despise more, parasite Mark Zuckerberg or its witless hosts who keep using its products—yes, Zuck's pronoun is it. Ban Ray-Ban, for frick's sake.

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[–] hamid@crazypeople.online 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

If the company puts up a sign notifying that there are cameras on the premises then under Article 6.1(f) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/ it is allowed due to "legitimate interest" in deterring crime, securing premises, promoting general safety. This could be argued in a court that it fails the balancing test and that they could and should use more narrow means of collection but the way the courts have ruled I don't think you'd win that case. Although to be fair the EU doesn't use common law or case law for decisions so it could be up to the particular judge.

Going back to the article though, if a person with the glasses is filming for "purely personal or household activity," the entire GDPR is exempt under Article 2(2)(c) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-2-gdpr/

GDPR regulates the data and the processing, not the act of filming or the expectation of privacy for an exempt usage. If they decide to sell this on a creeper site that is different but I wouldn't look to GDPR to be the primary legal framework for this being explicitly illegal. The actions under original article would more directly be a violation of multiple other national laws like Germany's "KunstURHG" and France's "Droit à l'image"