Smart glasses in court are a privacy nightmare

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrived at a Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday, he did so with a team that appeared to be wearing Meta’s camera-equipped Ray-Ban smart glasses. Judge Carolyn Kuhl was concerned. According to CNBC, Kuhl warned anyone recording with the glasses, “If you have done that, you must delete that, or you will be held in contempt of the court.” Kuhl also ordered everyone wearing AI smart glasses to remove them. Even after the warning, at least one person was seen wearing the glasses around jurors in a courthouse hallway, although plaintiff attorney Rachel Lanier was told the glasses weren’t recording at the time.

Glasses with recording capabilities have sparked concerns about privacy, surveillance, and doxxing in all kinds of places, and the courtroom is no exception. Earlier this month, a user on the r/legaladvice subreddit shared a post asking for advice on reporting a plaintiff wearing Meta’s glasses to court. Additionally, over recent months, a few states have moved to specifically ban smart glasses from courthouses, including the US District Courts for the District of Hawaii and the Western District of Wisconsin. The Forsyth County Court in North Carolina also banned smart glasses last year. Colorado’s District Court is considering a ban as well.

As smart glasses become more common, though, keeping courts safe from unwanted recording may become an uphill battle.

While a ban on smart glasses in courthouses may be a relatively recent development, limitations on cameras and recording are nothing new. Since 1946, the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 has banned recording or broadcasting criminal proceedings in federal courts. In 1972, the Judicial Conference of the United States also adopted a ban on recording and broadcasting in the courtroom and the areas around it that included both civil and criminal cases. The only significant exception to those rules was in 2020, when the Judicial Conference temporarily allowed teleconferencing due to the covid-19 pandemic, although that exception ended in 2023.

On a state level, laws around cameras in courtrooms vary from one state to another and have changed over the years. Most states allow recording in some capacity. However, there are often restrictions, like requiring a judge’s approval, prohibiting recording certain aspects of a trial, or only allowing recording for certain people, like members of the media.

There are a variety of reasons for banning recording devices in the courtroom. For instance, the presence of cameras could potentially be used to intimidate witnesses or jurors, or motivate people to behave or speak differently if they know they are on camera. Privacy and security can also be an issue, especially in cases involving minors, who are often allowed to be anonymous in court records. If worn in court, smart glasses like Meta’s could be used to record court proceedings without a judge’s knowledge or permission, potentially risking the privacy of everyone involved in the case.

Darío Maestro, legal director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), commented to The Verge that smart glasses are no exception to recording bans. “Courts have long restricted recording devices for good reason — to protect witnesses, jurors, and the integrity of proceedings. No judge would allow someone to sit in the gallery pointing a smartphone at the witness stand, even with the camera app closed. Glasses that can record covertly deserve at least the same scrutiny.”

While a phone can be easily put away, however, someone who needs corrective lenses might find it harder to take smart glasses off. If the glasses become more common, rules could become more onerous to enforce. Meta sold 7 million pairs of smart glasses in 2025, and other companies are taking notice — Apple is reportedly aiming to release a pair of glasses in 2027.

The glasses typically have an LED indicator that’s supposed to show when they’re recording, but it can be disabled without authorization and, even when it’s working, easily missed. The features, meanwhile, are only becoming more invasive: Earlier this month, an internal memo from Meta surfaced indicating that the company plans to add facial recognition, allowing users to identify people by name.

Judge Kuhl made it clear that she won’t allow recording with smart glasses in the courtroom. Outright bans on smart glasses in court are still rare in the US, so orders like this will likely be the most direct and commonly used strategy for keeping glasses out of court proceedings for the time being.

“Judges typically have a high degree of control over what items and devices are allowed in their courtrooms, and I would expect that most would respond as Judge Kuhl did here very strongly against any attempts to improperly record proceedings,” Alan Butler, executive director and president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), explained in a statement to The Verge.

Butler added, “The fact that Meta’s legal team appears to have come to this hearing in a trial over the dangers their systems cause equipped with invasive glasses that put jurors and others in the courtroom at risk is a bit on the nose. But the Judge’s response was refreshing and shows that such behavior need not be tolerated.”