During a trans-rights protest in Delhi, Shabnam, who identifies as trans-feminine, was secretly recorded by an Instagram content creator who specialises in ragebait content. The video, which went viral on social media, caused a huge avalanche of transphobic hate and was reposted several times on various right-wing accounts before being taken down. The tool that enabled this video to exist was Meta AI’s Ray-Ban Meta glasses, a device increasingly used by people on both sides of the fence. This device, which looks very much like a pair of sunglasses, lets the user record their surroundings from their point of view, removing the strain of holding a camera and enabling greater flexibility in filming. The glasses themselves have a very subtle sign of whether the camera is recording or not: a small LED light blinking on the frame, which is often not noticed. There has been a rise in popularity of videos that employ these smart glasses on social media; however, with their usage, there are also many questions being raised over their legality both in India and abroad.
The usage of these glasses in public spaces raises many concerns over privacy and consent. In the case of the trans-rights protest, there are many individuals present who may not have come out to their friends and family, and their visibility in these “POV” videos may deeply affect their personal and professional lives.
There is also a legislative black hole; the current Digital Personal Data Protection Act did not take into account technologies such as these. This makes taking action against unwanted recordings significantly harder, as social media sites are reluctant to take down videos, particularly Instagram and Facebook, and the lack of a legal precedent makes it difficult for any legal action to be taken. This issue isn’t just limited to India; it extends to the rest of the world as well. In Europe, smart glasses are facing possible bans, and various restaurants and concert venues in the United Kingdom are prohibiting them, as they are interpreted to be an invasion of the patron’s privacy.
The public is not the only one making use of this technology; recently, the Delhi Police came under the radar for their use of Ray-Ban Meta glasses during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests at Jantar Mantar. Assistant Deputy Commissioner of police Sandeep Lamba, who was previously seen slapping a female protester, was seen wearing these glasses to record the protests. In an event clouded by controversy, the use of technology made for content creators being used for government surveillance raises questions about the end goal for Meta and how they want to see their products being used across the world. In temples and cinema halls across India, people are being checked on whether they are wearing these smart glasses or not. Large temples often have rules against recording inside the premises, and cinema halls have anti-piracy laws, both of which are threatened by an unassuming pair of glasses.
Outside India, New York has enforced a blanket ban on smart glasses throughout their court system. The glasses have also been banned in SAT examination centres, while South Korea mirrored this move by enforcing the same ban in their country’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT).
Meanwhile in India, there is barely any legislation that stands up against the use of these glasses.
The glasses were advertised to place privacy as their core value of operations, but reports have revealed that the video footage from the glasses was being routed to human contractors in Kenya to help train their artificial intelligence algorithms.
Videos contained unknowingly captured intimate moments of people going to the toilet, changing clothes, etc. While Meta has stated that the usage of human contractors is well within their privacy policy, this has also raised questions about where exactly one draws the line in using this data, and whether privacy is actually being upheld in these technologies.
Meta is not alone in commercialising this technology. Bangalore’s Sarvam AI has come up with its very own AI-powered smart glasses, “Sarvam Kaze”, at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, where the glasses were showcased with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These glasses were said to be trained on Sarvam’s own AI models as opposed to foreign AI models, and were trained on Indian languages, making it tailor-made for the Indian population. Kaze includes the same built-in cameras and microphones, allowing it to replicate the video capabilities of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The glasses were announced to be released in May 2026, although there haven’t been any updates since. Due to their made-in-India approach, Kaze was positioned to be a more affordable homegrown product, possibly making it more accessible to the general public.
The biggest concerns that the country faces currently are not the glasses themselves, but rather the lack of legislation on how they are being used in public spaces.
In today’s day and age, data privacy is one of the biggest issues plaguing the common public, and with the advent of unregulated technologies that allow for widespread surveillance, from both the government and private companies, questions are being raised on whether who benefits from the sales of these glasses, the people buying and using them, or the ones who are profiting from the data within these glasses.
Image credits: CCadio, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Leave a Reply