Meta's smart glasses business is facing a wave of privacy criticism, prompting the company to introduce belated safeguards even as fresh reports suggest it is considering far more invasive features. Activist groups have plastered satirical anti-Meta posters over adverts for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses in New York, London and Washington DC, accusing the company of enabling covert surveillance, while numerous "Meta glasshole" incidents have seen people filmed without consent, sometimes with the device's recording indicator light disabled or tampered with.

In response, Meta has announced a mandatory software update that disables the camera if the privacy light is physically tampered with, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said the platform will remove glasses-recorded videos depicting harassment. However, these moves come after reports from the New York Times and Wired alleging Meta explored facial recognition features for the glasses, and a Financial Times report claiming the company wants the devices to be capable of recording 24/7. The Verge argues that despite Meta's commercial success in making smart glasses mainstream through its EssilorLuxottica partnership, its recent decisions have undermined public trust rather than reassured it.