Meta's AI-powered smart glasses, which allow wearers to discreetly record video, are increasingly being used to film, harass and "prank" public-facing workers such as retail and service staff. Because these employees cannot easily walk away or refuse service, and many workplaces lack policies to address the devices, smart glasses are worsening the power imbalance between customers and staff, making it a growing labour and privacy concern rather than just a consumer gadget controversy.

The article details one incident at a Target store where two customers wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses repeatedly asked an employee, Toru Hinkle, for a price check while secretly filming and mocking them and a manager, including deliberate misgendering; police were eventually called and the men removed. The resulting video, made without consent, was posted online and drew nearly 400,000 views on Instagram and 155,000 on TikTok, and was even stumbled upon by a different Target manager while scrolling social media. Meta has sold millions of the glasses, and while Instagram says it will remove such content, the report frames this as part of a broader pattern of workers being turned into unwitting content for pranksters exploiting the devices' recording capability.