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German Advocacy Group Lodges Criminal Complaint Over Meta AI Glasses (reuters.com) 41

Posted by BeauHD from the always-watching dept.
A German digital-rights group has filed a criminal complaint against Meta, Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica, and several retailers over Meta's AI smart glasses, arguing the devices can enable covert recording in violation of German privacy law. Prosecutors have begun a preliminary review, while Germany's network regulator says smart glasses are legal "as long as the recording function is clearly visible." Reuters reports: "There's no place to escape from smart glasses. You have to expect at any moment to be filmed and then exposed on the internet," said HateAid managing director Josephine Ballon. The organization reported the management of Meta, units of spectacles maker EssilorLuxottica including Ray-Ban, as well as retailers Fielmann, Apollo-Optik, Mister Spex and MediaMarkt to the Frankfurt-based digital crime prosecution unit ZIT. HateAid said its complaint was based on a federal digital data protection law that prohibits the sale of communication devices designed to film people without them noticing.

ZIT confirmed it received a complaint from HateAid invoking that law, saying it would routinely investigate on a preliminary basis whether there are grounds for a deeper probe. MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group said it was taking the complaint very seriously, adding that its suppliers had contractual obligations for all goods to be compliant with the law. Mister Spex said it had not been officially notified of a complaint and that it was taking protection of privacy very seriously.

German Advocacy Group Lodges Criminal Complaint Over Meta AI Glasses More | Reply

German Advocacy Group Lodges Criminal Complaint Over Meta AI Glasses

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  • Let's half-ass it forever! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @01:05PM (#66285686) Homepage Journal

    "There's no place to escape from smart glasses. You have to expect at any moment to be filmed and then exposed on the internet," said HateAid managing director Josephine Ballon.

    That's true with or without smart glasses. Any asshole can just buy a button hole camera on the internets. As long as we keep fighting over each individual opportunity for surveillance instead of public surveillance itself, it's deck chairs forever. Or, you know, until the ship actually sinks.

    • I think that's actually the point - target something highly visible so it appears you're doing something (even if it accomplishes nothing meaningful to address the underlying issue). It's like how here in the US we have states with scary looking gun bans. Never mind some psychopath can still go on his shooting spree with a gun that isn't on the banned list.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        Just take a look who "HateAid" [wikipedia.org] are, whom they are financed by, and what political opinions they campaign for, and you'll see this "anti big bad corporation while turning a blind eye to every other form of surveillance" campaign is exactly what you would expect from such organization.

        I would be the last to state anything positive about Meta or "AI glasses"-wearers, but this anti-free-speech organization is the last I would trust to be acting on people's behalf.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      And yet any idiot didn't buy a button hole camera. This really started when smart glasses came on the market, particularly the Meta ones.

      By the way, there is an Android app that detects smart glasses near you: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

    • Any asshole can just buy a button hole camera on the internets

      The button hole camera doesn't stream everything to Meta, so they can perform facial recognition on everyone who walks by. It's a lone creeper vs mass surveillance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      As long as we keep fighting over each individual opportunity for surveillance instead of public surveillance itself,

      Germany, similar to a lot of countries, seems to have general privacy laws that deal with photographing and publishing identifiable people.

      In fact, that's in the first sentence of the summary.

    • Fortunately, we have these things called.laws. you band sale of such devices and take people to court for it or for using such a device. Knives are widely available anywhere and there's no way to stop that (nor desire..i cook). Yet the laws against stabbing people are pretty effective.

      • I'm in favor of enforcement of laws which protect rights, but it's cheap and easy to get such devices, and there are valid reasons for them to exist — like knives.

        You could cook with only shorter knives. It would be a lot more difficult (I also cook) but it would be possible.

    • That's true with or without smart glasses. Any asshole can just buy a button hole camera on the internets.

      Those are illegal in the EU by the exact same law that Hate Aid is citing. Any object intended to take pictures which is disguised as an everyday object is simply illegal and they say, that is also true of those smart glasses, especially as they are nearly identical to the base models.

      I am personally of the opinion, that a big sign has to be attached to the top of the glasses saying "Warning: Video Device" so that it makes the people wearing them look like the idiots they are.

  • Pointless circle jerk. (Score:5, Informative)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot AT keirstead DOT org> on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @01:14PM (#66285708)

    There are HUNDREDS of brands of camera smart glasses on the market, most of them WITHOUT recording lights.

    There are also THOUSANDS of types of OTHER wearable cameras, in every form factor you can think of - pins, pendants, buttons, you name it.

    These things have existed FOR YEARS.

    THIS IS NOT NEW TECHNOLOGY.

    • Can we punish people for uploading to the cloud. And punish the cloud for retaining, redistributing, and reselling what appears to be illegally obtained videos? Is that too much to ask?

      • Laws and regulations need to be put into place on recording in public and what is allowed to be done with those recordings without consent. It's that simple. The concepts of privacy and consent that we have relied on as a society for the past few hundred years were not built to withstand the type of technology that is available today.

        If you record in public without consent, the only thing you should be allowed to do with that video is maintain it in private and use it for security or investigative purposes

        • If you record in public without consent, the only thing you should be allowed to do with that video is maintain it in private and use it for security or investigative purposes for a fixed time window. Any other use should be prohibited, and yes that this includes use by the media.

          News reporting?

          And anyone can be a news reporter potentially.....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        In order: no, no, no, no, yes, no.

        The lone "yes" is for illegally obtained. Otherwise you're effectively banning the default situation for every smartphone on the market today.

        More to the point, Meta's glasses are in no way unique - And make no mistake, I loathe all things Meta as much as the rest of you. Unmodified, they're no different than using any other camera in public (including dozens of competing smart / camera glasses). Even modified - I hate to break it to you all, but go to Amazon and search

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      It doesn't matter that it is new. It matters that people actually know about it now. Which they do. And they really, really don't like it for many very, very good reasons.

      You can thank Meta for announcing to the world that this tech exists.

      • Great! But the lawsuits and regulations need to stop naming "Meta glasses" and be widened to cover ANY AND ALL recording without consent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by eepok ( 545733 )

          That's how lawsuits work. You got after one major target and the ruling results in mandates or requirements for entire industries.

    • I remember my old flip phone from 2008 had a mandatory shutter sound when taking a photo. It couldn't be disabled. However, you could replace the sound with a custom wav file... so I uploaded an empty file and voila, no shutter sound. These things have always been trivial to bypass.

      The main difference here, though, is that the QUALITY of the footage has increased dramatically... pair that with ultrasonic or even radar scanning, you're literally getting high-resolution 3d scans of yourself taken without you'

  • What's next?

    Cellphone in the breast-pocket do the same, I guess they'll sue the shirt and jacket companies next.

    • I've had strip clubs yell at me for having the camera lens visible from my cell phone in my shirt pocket. Not a new thing. (No, I wasn't recording anything.) I just keep it in my pants pocket now.
  • So what are you supposed to do when you find yourself being explicitly filmed without your consent, _not trying to conceal it? I once told someone "the entertainmnet is on the stage", and snatched+threw their phone at a concert because they were very clearly making a movie of my spastic dancing.They were pissed lol. But obviously that doesn't work scalably. If they'd taken a swing at me there would have been a fight, almost certainly ending with us both begin ejected, which isn't a positive outcome if I'm

    • I can only speak of German law, but taking photos in public places is allowed only if either the people agree or they are mere decoration. If that is not the case you could sue them. If the photo or video is published, then the situation gets much more interesting, because now you can use copyright law and that can get expensive, especially as in Germany the looser of a court battle pays the expenses of the winning party and the looser must make sure, that all of the pictures are taken down, not only his bu

  • Here in the US, audio recording without consent is prohibited by wiretap laws, but not video recording... sigh.

    • Here in the US, audio recording without consent is prohibited by wiretap laws, but not video recording... sigh.

      That's not quite true....

      That's ONLY true in states that mandate both parties consent to and know they're being recorded.

      Many, if not most states...allow for one party consent, so usually the person recording knows its recording and therefore legal.

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