I Wore Meta's Glasses. Then I Read the Record.

Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Several months ago I did a livestream with a fellow Substacker, and I wore Meta glasses during it. At no point did I use the recording feature the glasses have during the livestream, but that doesn't make it ok.

I’d purchased the glasses in Minneapolis for ICE watch, so that I could record ICE agents during enforcement actions without holding an object in my hand, because holding an object in your hand near federal agents is a risk. I'd also had prescription lenses put into the glasses so I could see and continued using them occasionally after returning from Minneapolis.

I learned afterward that my wearing them on that stream was really distressing for the person I streamed with. I also learned there was a lot I was ignorant about and that these glasses come with serious creep and fascist baggage. You won't see me wearing them again.

To be clear, I apologize for wearing a recording-capable device on our stream without telling them beforehand and giving them the chance to say no, and I apologize for being ignorant about what Meta does with everything these glasses capture.

What follows is a brief accounting of what Meta is doing with these devices, and model legislation our team has drafted to address it.

To reiterate, It doesn't matter that I wasn't filming, just wearing the glasses is a problem and an invasion of privacy.

This is partly because Meta has been accused of recording audio and video even when people believed their devices weren't recording. The company's record makes the accusation credible.

Meta captured facial geometry from users' photos and videos without consent and paid 650 million dollars to Illinois class members in 2021 and 1.4 billion dollars to the State of Texas in 2024 for that conduct.

In April 2025 the company changed the glasses' default settings so that voice recordings are stored on Meta's servers for up to one year to train its AI, with no option to decline the storage.

Footage captured by the glasses, including video of people undressing, using the bathroom, and having sex inside their own homes, was sent to contractors in Kenya for human review and labeling, according to a February investigation by the Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten.

A federal class action filed on March 4, Bartone v. Meta Platforms, alleges that Meta never disclosed the human review pipeline and that reviewers saw identifiable faces and credit card numbers in the footage. The complaint describes a pair of the glasses left on a bedside table that kept capturing while the owner's partner changed clothes in front of them, unaware.

Dozens of influencers have used the glasses to covertly film women in public and post the footage for engagement, a BBC investigation found in January; in one case the video of a 21 year old reached 1.3 million views with her phone number attached.

There is now a small commercial market for drilling the recording light out of the frames.

So today we got the Existentialist Republic legislation team together and drafted the Wearable Recording Device Privacy Act, and we assembled it out of law that already exists.

Its definitions come from the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has survived eighteen years of litigation. Its indicator requirement comes from Pennsylvania House Bill 2603. Its conduct rules extend California Senate Bill 1130 and follow the method of Louisiana's pending consent bill. Its authority to condition sale on hardware standards rests on California's smartphone kill switch and connected device security statutes, both enacted and both standing.

The act requires a working recording indicator on every device sold in the state and requires the device to shut off capture whenever that indicator is blocked, removed, or broken. It criminalizes selling the tools and services that defeat the light.

It makes cloud storage of recordings opt-in, requires disclosure of any human review, prohibits training AI on bystanders without their written consent, gives anyone captured by one of these devices a right to deletion within thirty days, and preserves in plain text the right to record police and public officials performing their duties in public.

Behind all of it sits a private right of action worth 10,000 dollars per negligent violation and 25,000 dollars per intentional one, plus punitive damages, with the amounts drawn from the federal Wiretap Act and from the Texas statute Meta already paid 1.4 billion dollars under.

No device Meta currently sells complies. Under this act, none could be sold in your state until the company redesigns to the standard your legislature sets.

I understand if people are upset. I was ignorant on the subject, and I hear folks on this. I was wrong to ever wear this product and I apologize for the distress that caused.

This legislation can be passed at the state level, and it would prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future and ultimately would protect people.

The full text is below, with a source map so your legislator's counsel can verify every section.

Here is what we do with this act. Look up your state representative and your state senator at open.pluralpolicy.com/find_your_legislator, the Open States tool, which pulls their email and office contact from your street address. Email them this article, or copy and paste the bill text itself, which is easier from a PC browser. Ask them for two things: their thoughts on the act, and a public endorsement of it.

Then send it to your county Democratic party, your Indivisible chapter, and any organizing group you belong to. Ask the leadership to put it in front of their members, and ask the members to endorse it and share it.

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MODEL WEARABLE RECORDING DEVICE PRIVACY ACT

Model legislation for introduction in any state legislature. Bracketed text indicates placeholders for state-specific citations and classifications. A source map for every operative provision appears in Appendix A so that legislative counsel can verify provenance and existing judicial construction.

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SECTION 1. TITLE

This Act may be cited as the Wearable Recording Device Privacy Act.

SECTION 2. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

The Legislature finds as follows:

(a) Wearable recording devices that integrate cameras and microphones into ordinary eyewear and other worn articles are now mass-market consumer products. Unlike a handheld camera, these devices collapse the distinction between observation and capture, and bystanders frequently cannot perceive when recording is occurring.

(b) The largest manufacturer in this market has an established record of capturing personal data without consent. In 2021, Meta Platforms, Inc. agreed to pay 650 million dollars to resolve claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act that it collected facial geometry from users' photographs and videos without informed written consent. In 2024, the company agreed to pay 1.4 billion dollars to the State of Texas to resolve claims under the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act arising from the same conduct.

(c) In April 2025, the manufacturer of the best-selling wearable recording device changed its default settings so that users' voice recordings are transmitted to and stored on company servers for up to one year for artificial intelligence training, with no mechanism to opt out of that storage.

(d) In February 2026, investigative reporting by the Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten documented that recordings captured by these devices, including footage of individuals undressing, using bathrooms, and engaged in intimate activity inside private homes, were transmitted to overseas contractors for human review and labeling as part of an artificial intelligence training pipeline. A federal class action filed March 4, 2026, Bartone v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-01897 (N.D. Cal.), alleges that this human review pipeline was never disclosed to consumers and that the footage reviewed included identifiable faces and financial information.

(e) Journalists have documented a commercial market for disabling the visual recording indicators on these devices, including services that drill out indicator lights and adhesive products designed to defeat the sensors intended to detect an obscured indicator.

(f) In January 2026, a BBC investigation documented dozens of social media content creators using wearable recording devices to covertly film women in public for entertainment content, in at least one case disseminating the footage, together with the subject's personal contact information, to an audience of more than one million viewers.

(g) Existing wiretap, voyeurism, and biometric privacy statutes were not drafted with wearable recording devices in mind and leave gaps concerning indicator standards, default data retention, undisclosed human review, and the rights of recorded bystanders.

(h) The purpose of this Act is to establish content-neutral device standards, use rules, and data practice requirements that protect the reasonable privacy expectations of all persons, while expressly preserving the right to record law enforcement officers, public officials, and matters of public concern in public places.

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.

As used in this Act:

(a) "Wearable recording device" means a device designed to be worn on or about the body, including but not limited to eyeglasses, frames, jewelry, headwear, or clothing, that is capable of capturing audio, photographic, or video recordings of the wearer's surroundings. The term does not include: (1) a device that records solely the physiological data of the wearer; (2) a hearing aid or cochlear implant that does not retain or transmit recordings; or (3) a body-worn camera operated by a law enforcement agency pursuant to [cite state body-worn camera statute].

(b) "Capture" means to record, transmit, or transcribe audio, photographic, or video content, including transcription or analysis performed by an artificial intelligence system.

(c) "Visual recording indicator" means a light or display element on a wearable recording device that activates whenever the device is capturing and that is plainly visible under ordinary conditions to persons within fifteen feet of the wearer.

(d) "Biometric identifier" means a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry. Biometric identifiers do not include writing samples, written signatures, photographs, human biological samples used for valid scientific testing or screening, demographic data, tattoo descriptions, or physical descriptions such as height, weight, hair color, or eye color.

(e) "Biometric information" means any information, regardless of how it is captured, converted, stored, or shared, based on an individual's biometric identifier used to identify an individual.

(f) "Private conversation" has the meaning given to ["private communication" / "oral communication"] in [cite state wiretap or eavesdropping statute].

(g) "Bystander" means any individual, other than the user of a wearable recording device, whose image, voice, or biometric identifier is captured by the device.

(h) "Human review" means the examination of captured recordings by any natural person other than the user, including review for labeling, moderation, quality assurance, or the training or improvement of any artificial intelligence system.

(i) "Assistive use" means the use of a wearable recording device by or on behalf of an individual with a disability to substitute for or augment a sensory or cognitive function.

(j) "Manufacturer" and "operator" mean, respectively, any person that produces a wearable recording device or its operating software for sale, and any person that processes, stores, or receives recordings captured by such a device.

SECTION 4. DEVICE STANDARDS; CONDITIONS OF SALE.

(a) No person shall sell, offer for sale, or lease in this State a wearable recording device manufactured on or after [date twelve months after enactment] unless the device:

(1) is equipped with a functioning visual recording indicator;

(2) is designed so that the device automatically disables all capture functions whenever the visual recording indicator is obstructed, removed, damaged, or otherwise nonfunctional; and

(3) is accompanied at the point of sale by the disclosures required under Section 6(d) of this Act.

(b) No person shall knowingly manufacture, import, distribute, sell, offer, or provide any device, component, software, or service that is designed or marketed to disable, obscure, remove, or defeat a visual recording indicator. Each device modified, and each product or service sold or offered, constitutes a separate violation.

(c) A retailer shall conspicuously inform purchasers of this State's recording consent laws at the point of sale, in a form prescribed by the [Attorney General].

SECTION 5. PROHIBITED USE.

(a) No person shall operate a wearable recording device to capture the image, voice, or biometric identifier of another identifiable individual in any place or circumstance in which that individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the consent of that individual.

(b) No person shall operate a wearable recording device to capture sound or video of any other individual in any place without the other individual's actual knowledge if: (1) the device lacks a visual recording indicator; or (2) the visual recording indicator has been permanently or temporarily disabled or obscured.

(c) No person shall use a wearable recording device to capture or transcribe a private conversation except in conformity with [cite state wiretap or eavesdropping statute]. For purposes of that statute, transcription of a conversation by a wearable recording device or an associated artificial intelligence system constitutes a recording of that conversation.

(d) No person shall disseminate a recording that the person knows or reasonably should know was captured in violation of subsection (a) or (b) of this Section.

SECTION 6. DATA PRACTICES.

(a) Default local storage. No manufacturer or operator shall transmit off-device, or retain on any remote server, audio, photographic, or video recordings captured by a wearable recording device, or transcriptions thereof, except with the affirmative, revocable, opt-in consent of the user, obtained separately from any general terms of service. Default settings shall provide for local storage only.

(b) Human review. No manufacturer or operator shall subject captured recordings to human review except recordings that the user has affirmatively submitted for that purpose following a conspicuous, contemporaneous disclosure that human review will occur.

(c) Training restrictions. No manufacturer or operator shall use recordings that depict an identifiable bystander, or a bystander's voice or biometric identifier, to train, develop, or improve any artificial intelligence system, absent the prior written consent of that bystander.

(d) Disclosure. Every manufacturer shall disclose, at the point of sale and within the device's companion application, in plain language: the categories of data captured; default storage locations; retention periods; whether and under what circumstances human review occurs; and whether recordings are used for artificial intelligence training. Every operator shall publish an annual public transparency report describing the same.

(e) Bystander deletion. Every operator shall maintain a reasonably accessible mechanism by which a bystander may request deletion of recordings in which the bystander appears, and shall complete verified deletion requests within thirty days.

(f) Retention limits. An operator shall permanently destroy captured recordings and derived data when the initial purpose for collection has been satisfied, or within one year of the user's last interaction with the operator, whichever occurs first.

(g) Biometrics. No manufacturer or operator shall collect, capture, or otherwise obtain a biometric identifier or biometric information of any individual other than the enrolled user for the purpose of identification, absent that individual's prior informed written consent, which shall include disclosure of the specific purpose and length of term of collection. No manufacturer or operator shall sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from any person's biometric identifier or biometric information.

SECTION 7. EXEMPTIONS AND CONSTRUCTION.

(a) Nothing in Section 5 of this Act prohibits:

(1) the recording of a law enforcement officer, or of any public official or public employee, engaged in the performance of official duties in a public place or in any place where the officer, official, or employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy;

(2) the recording of any meeting required to be open to the public under [cite state open meetings act];

(3) capture undertaken in good faith to document the commission of a crime or to summon emergency assistance;

(4) assistive use, provided the visual recording indicator remains functional; or

(5) capture performed with the written consent of all recorded individuals in connection with professional media production.

(b) This Act regulates the capture and processing of recordings and does not restrict the publication of information. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit any right secured by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or [cite state constitutional provision].

SECTION 8. ENFORCEMENT.

(a) Private right of action. Any person aggrieved by a violation of this Act may bring a civil action and may recover: (1) against a party that negligently violates this Act, liquidated damages of 10,000 dollars or actual damages, whichever is greater; (2) against a party that intentionally or recklessly violates this Act, liquidated damages of 25,000 dollars or actual damages, whichever is greater, together with punitive damages; (3) twice the amounts recoverable under paragraph (1) or (2) where the recorded individual is a minor; (4) reasonable attorneys' fees and costs; and (5) other relief, including an injunction, as the court may deem appropriate. Each individual captured and each distinct recording constitute separate violations, provided that recovery for the same recording accrues once per aggrieved person.

(b) Consumer protection enforcement. A violation of Section 4 or Section 6 of this Act constitutes an unfair or deceptive act or practice under [cite state consumer protection act]. The [Attorney General] may recover a civil penalty of not more than 25,000 dollars for each violation. Each device sold, offered, or leased in violation of Section 4, and each individual whose recordings or data are processed in violation of Section 6, constitutes a separate violation, and a continuing violation accrues separately for each day it continues.

(c) Criminal penalties. A violation of Section 5(b) is a [misdemeanor classification]. A violation of Section 5(a) committed in a place where the recorded individual was in a state of undress, or a violation of Section 5(d), is a [felony classification consistent with the state voyeurism statute]. A violation of Section 4(b) is a [misdemeanor classification] for each device or service.

(d) The remedies provided in this Section are cumulative and do not limit any other remedy available at law or equity.

SECTION 9. SEVERABILITY.

If any provision of this Act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the Act, or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances, is not affected.

SECTION 10. EFFECTIVE DATES.

Sections 5, 7, 8, and 9 of this Act take effect ninety days after enactment. Sections 4 and 6 take effect twelve months after enactment and apply to devices sold, and data collected, on or after that date.

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APPENDIX A. SOURCE MAP FOR LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL.

Section 3(d), (e) and Section 6(g) are drawn verbatim or near-verbatim from the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14/10 and 14/15(b), (c). Eighteen years of Illinois litigation, including Rosenbach v. Six Flags, 2019 IL 123186 (standing without actual injury), have settled the construction of these terms.

Section 5(b) adapts the operative language of Pennsylvania House Bill 2603 (Rep. Ciresi, 2026 session), which prohibits operating a wearable recording device to capture others without actual knowledge where the indicator is absent or disabled, and which prohibits indicator tampering.

Section 5(a) and Section 8(c) extend the approach of California Senate Bill 1130 (Sen. Gómez Reyes, 2026), the Wearable Device Privacy Protection Act, which crimi