Smart glasses will be banned in every New York courtroom starting July 20, according to an internal memo from the the New York State Unified Court System. The ban applies to every courtroom in the state and comes after similar bans from some court systems in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Wisconsin. The New York ban appears to be the first in the U.S. that explicitly covers every court in a given state.
The ban will apply to any eyewear or headwear that contains recording devices, including either audio or video, according to a July 1 memo reviewed by Gizmodo. Prescription glasses with the ability to record are also banned and anyone who arrives to court with them on will be required to leave them with court officers.
“The reason for this prohibition is to ensure that individuals cannot surreptitiously record court proceedings in violation of the New York State Civil Rights Law and applicable court rules,” reads the memo reads, which was first reported by Syracuse.com.
Recording devices are already banned in many courts across the country, even if they haven’t yet explicitly called out smart glasses. Two people who showed up to court in Los Angeles, California, while wearing smart glasses this past February were admonished by the judge. Zuckerberg was testifying in a case that alleged Instagram was designed to be addictive to kids. Meta was ultimately found liable in that suit.
Courts’ resistance only the latest in backlash against smart glasses
The resurgence of smart glasses, including Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, has led to massive public backlash among people worried about privacy. Nicknames for the glasses have emerged on social media, including “pervert glasses,” because they’re often used to record people without their consent.
Influencers have been using the glasses to capture footage of women who likely don’t know they’re being recorded, including a San Diego man named Cameron John or Comron who goes by the handle Rizzzcam. The manfluencer, who has over 1.8 million subscribers on Instagram, approaches women he doesn’t know in public and compliments them repeatedly until he asks for their number.
Most women don’t appear to know they’re being recorded and John has been physically attacked by people frustrated with his antics. John promotes an app called RizzMaxed that uses AI to allow men to practice approaching women they find attractive. RizzMaxed Pro is a subscription service in the app that costs $5 per week.
Meta’s glasses have an LED light that illuminates when it’s recording but it’s not hard to cover the light. Companies that make smart glasses have touted their supposed safety features, but the public still has a natural tendency to be skeptical of claims being made by tech companies.
There are also the aesthetic issues that have drawn criticism. Snap’s recently announced AR glasses called Specs, for example, look like a parody of what tech-enabled glasses should look like.
They’re bulky and weird, exactly the kind of design that makes it harder to hide the fact that you’re wearing something so dorky.
Despite the backlash, some disability activists has touted the positive aspects of smart glasses. Meta launched a program in June to give free smart glasses to every blind veteran in America.
