Global News Podcast - The Global Story: Smart glasses or ‘pervert glasses’?

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

At a recent Meta product launch, Mark Zuckerberg promised that the company’s smart glasses would give wearers “new superpowers”, but what are they? Amid criticisms of its privacy and child protection policies, Meta is betting big on smart glasses as a way to restyle the company’s image, but they too have caused controversy – dubbed by critics ‘pervert glasses’ because they have been used to film women without their knowledge. So why are Meta and other big tech firms investing billions in this tech? Who is it for? Lily Jamali, the BBC’s North America technology correspondent, joins us to explain. For more episodes, just search 'The Global Story' wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret, of the school's head teacher. This was someone I respected above anyone else. And the investigation led by students, he's trying to silence. If this is leaked to the media, I'll be destroyed. This is World of Seward.

Secrets, Catching My Teacher. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hi there, it's Asma Khalid. I'm one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. On our show, we explore one big story each weekday that's at the intersection of where the world and America meet. Today, we're bringing you an episode on a controversial new technology, known as smart glasses.

They can take photos, record videos. and use AI to help people navigate the world. Fans of this tech say the glasses are revolutionary. Critics say they're an invasion of privacy. So who actually wants them? And why are tech companies spending loads of money to develop them? My co-host, Tristan Redmond and I went looking for answers. And by the way, if you all enjoy this episode,

you can find more from us every weekday. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts. Now, on to the show. There's this online trend of videos. You might have seen them, where men proposition women in public. The format's almost always the same. It goes like this. Hey, excuse me, if there was one thing I'd change about you, it would be your last name to mine.

You're seeing the world from someone else's point of view. The camera's at eye level. Hey, baby. I like your shirt. Hi, you're very beautiful. I would like to take you out sometime. There's a woman walking towards the camera and then you hear the man who's filming. Are you single?

Yes or no? Why are you not talking, Mama? The women often look uncomfortable. Sometimes they try to laugh it off. Give me a kiss. Beautiful. It doesn't seem like they know they're being filmed. I found these videos under the hashtag RISCAM on TikTok.

Usually they're filmed with so-called smart glasses, glasses with cameras built into them. And a bunch of tech companies are investing a lot of money in these. Kylie Jenner and Lisa, the K-pop star, as well as the big glasses brands, Rayban and Oakley have their own ranges with Meta. But that hasn't stopped some people calling them, pervert glasses. What are big companies like Meta doing to protect people's privacy? And why are they pouring billions of dollars into this controversial tech?

From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond and today on The Global Story. Who are smart glasses actually for? Well, to find out more about all this, Asma and I spoke with our North America tech correspondent, Lily Jamali, a regular on the show who spoke to us from San Francisco. Great to have you back on the show, Lily. Thanks for joining us. Great to be back.

So last week, Lily, we made an episode about meta. We're on a bit of a meta run at the moment. And it was about the social reckoning, which is the new movie about the company and what's happened to Facebook and concerns over privacy and all that kind of thing. But one of the kind of major meta lines that we didn't mention in that episode, and we thought we needed to do something about that, is the question of meta glasses, which are a big deal right now. Metaglasses, some critics have been dubbing them pervert glasses. Why would they say that, Lily? Well, they are being called that by a certain subset of critics because when people are wearing them, you can record people. You can record video. You can capture photos. And when this happens, there's supposed to be a light that goes on to indicate to the outside world, to the people in your surroundings, that that is taking place. Number one, not everyone is familiar with. smart glasses and how they work and what that light might mean. But there have also been some

instances of these glasses being used to harass, mostly women and girls, filming these folks without their consent and then sharing the footage. So the BBC has spoken with some of these victims who say that they were filmed in one case by a man who had taken video of her with these smart glasses without her consent. She didn't know it was happening. The video was then posted to social media where it went viral and the comments that resulted were derogatory and it was really upsetting to her. Una lives in Sussex. She was walking home from the beach when a man approached her.

He was wearing glasses. They just looked like sunglasses. And he just asked for my name and he asked where I was from. Two weeks later, her friend sent her this video on TikTok. Basically, the reason I've come over, I know it sounds a bit strange, but I'm in a bit of a rough. And I think it's really pretty. And I'd quite like to grab your number. Oh, okay, no problem.

Yeah, have a nice day anyway. She realized that he'd been filming her using smart glasses. I had no idea that it was happening to me. I didn't consent to that being posted. I didn't consent to being secretly filmed. I felt really vulnerable in that moment. It was so out of my control, which is the scary part for me. It definitely made me feel afraid to kind of go out in public.

I mean, there have been numerous examples of this, and it's gotten to the point where businesses have decided to ban smart glasses from their premises. So just a couple of examples are in the UK Weather Spoon pubs. There have been some schools that have banned them, some major theaters, even Comic-Con, the very popular event that takes place every year here in California. So those are examples of a couple of venues that have banned them. So there's enough concern out there and enough examples. out there that these businesses have decided to make that decision. So I just want to be clear,

I understand how these glasses actually function, because full disclosure, I have not tried a pair of smart glasses on myself. I know Lily, you have. How do they actually work? Well, if you haven't tried a pair of these smart glasses, we've got to get you out to Silicon Valley. When are we doing this? It is a right of passage. Yes, I would love that. Editors, please advise, listen to Lily's advice here. And actually, when you're here, they're, I kind of think of them in terms of adoption as being similar to electric vehicles where over just a span of a couple of years, here in San Francisco and in the Bay Area, they were suddenly everywhere. Really? Yeah, I can't drive for, you know, two minutes without seeing at least a couple of them. But it's gotten to the point where if I see somebody wearing Rayban sunglasses, I'm looking at them very, very.

carefully to see if I can discern two little cameras right by the hinges so I can decide, are they wearing smart glasses or aren't they? So that's where we are. Specifically because the brand of glasses paired with meta is often this brand Rayban, right? It's most often with Rayban. They do have a line with Oakley, but most of Meta's smart glasses are manufactured by the same manufacturer that is Rayban. So they are branded as Raybans. What was your experience like wearing them, Lily? Like what's a day? in the life of Lily in smart glasses like? So basically these smart glasses are, think of them as like computers on your face.

That's basically what they are. So you put them on and there are all kinds of things you can do with them. You can play music. You can take pictures. You can capture video. You can ask it things. And this is all through voice recognition. You're talking to the device.

Yeah. Yeah. You say, hey, META. And then you say like, what's the capital of Nebraska? It's Lincoln. Just so you know. My daughter just did her capitals. So, yeah, you can ask it queries like Wikipedia or, you know, typing a query into Google from the internet.

And then it links up to your like Spotify playlist. So you could be like, play the global story. Exactly. And then you could listen to it as you run. And that is exactly something I have done. I played the global story with them when I'm gardening. So that's when I do my podcast. I see Tristan looking so.

incredulous. I'm not, I'm not incredulous. I'm just, I'm just making sure that Lily is not flattering us. No, no, no, no. I'm not. This is what I do. So you've got your smart glasses on. Mm-hmm. What is the thing that most surprises you about the way they work? Like the thing you weren't expecting that made you go, wow. I will tell you what that thing is and I'm drawing some of this from the way that the smart classes have been marketed. So just bear that in mind. Because when I started wearing them, I was talking to a lot of executives

who were trying to pitch this, right? And I think there's something to it. So here's what they will say, and I see the idea here, is that, you know, we're always on our phones, right? Like, how do we get ourselves back into the real world? And the smart glasses are pitched in that way. They can do the things that the phone can do.

They can identify objects. they can do translation for you, but they don't pull you away from the real world in the way that the phone does, is the pitch. Now, I actually had a little bit of an off-putting experience when I first was introduced to them because an executive I was chatting with about the smart glasses actually had captured a photo of me and then only told me he had done that after he had captured the photo, he just went, boom, and I had never seen these cameras before. This was last year. And he's like, let me show you how they work. And then he took the picture. And yes, there was a flash. And then he goes, see, I just took a picture of you. And I will say that here in Silicon

Valley and in San Francisco, I think there's a lot more acceptance of that than there might be in other places. Because we're always immersed in technology, we're getting to experiment with new technologies all the time. Often were the first people getting to do that. But I think that really colored my initial introduction to the smart glasses. So I was very much like, I'm going to take these on a run. I'm going to play my favorite music on that run. I'm going to capture a little bit of video while I'm doing that run and, you know, kind of use it in that way, but then put them away in the box and lock them away in a drawer when I'm not actually using them. Lily, what have What have Mehta said about this issue of privacy?

So Meta has made clear that they are very much paying attention to the issue of privacy. And that's not an accident. The company has had a lot of issues over the years, of course, as we all know, with privacy. They, just last week or in late September, they had a jury verdict come back from a jury in New Mexico that found Facebook liable for deceiving users about the privacy protections that they said were in place on the platform. And then we've come back to the AI smart glasses. And we've talked about how certain users are really pushing the limits of what is comfortable or even appropriate for how these glasses can be used. Are they violating the privacy of people around them?

Some users have tampered with the light that indicates that either photos being taken or video is being captured. This is how I got rid of the LED light on my Rayban meta glasses. I've just started recording and you can see there is no light. However, they are recorded. It actually takes longer than you think. Just keep drilling until you hit the LED. Got that light on right there on the big and got that flash off completely in the front. I'm going to go ahead and clear it out and get them looking brand new just like I do every single time. Meta is very much aware of this and they've actually sent out a software update and been very public about it to notify users that are doing this, whereby they remove the ability to record video or take photos if you are

identified at somebody who has been tampering with the glasses. So two weeks ago, I was at MetaConnect. This is the company's annual developers conference, but it's also where Meta will launch its latest line of products. Hey, Mark, how's it going? How's it going? Just putting some finishing touches on over here. You ready to do this? Hey man, we got a packed house out there. You better get on stage. All right. I'll be out there in a minute. Let's go have some fun. And there were a lot of products that were unveiled, including many more versions of their Rayban branded AI smart glasses.

We have a whole room full of new glasses to show you today. And one of the types of glasses that they introduced that we haven't had available before were these meta-ray-band audio glasses. These are audio-only. You cannot take photos or pictures with them because there's no camera in them. And so what you can do with them is listen to music, listen to podcasts, make phone calls and things like that. So one question that we have been a little obsessed with is what if the glasses gave you the superpower to hear what is going on around you better? Interestingly, when Mark Zuckerberg unveiled them, he didn't directly say, that this was an attempt to handle some of the privacy issues that META has run into with their

traditional video capable AI smart glasses. They were marketed by him as their lighter weight. They have a much better battery life. And so it's also cheaper. So style is important because if you're going to be wearing glasses all day long, our mantra is they have to be great glasses first. Those were the things that were emphasized, but I think everybody in the room that follows the company was pretty aware that this was likely a response to some of the privacy concerns over how some users are wielding their video-capable AI smart glasses in ways that are uncomfortable for people around them. I have to ask you, Lily, because I watched the video of that event with Mark Zuckerberg up on stage and presenting it to, you know, kind of the faithful and the journalist, I guess, down in the auditorium. What was the level of excitement in the room? I mean, you know, you see these kind of legendary videos of, you know, Steve Jobs launching the first iPhone or the famous video of the Microsoft guys

launching Windows 95 back in the 90s and they're playing the Rolling Stone song and all that kind of thing. Did it have that kind of vibe? Well, the going joke with all of these events is that everybody thinks they're Steve Jobs because nobody did it better than Steve Jobs, the late Apple. CEO who would do these live demos, would crack jokes, would interact with the audience. And Mark Zuckerberg even used a phrase very similar to, if not the exact phrase, one more thing, which was something that everybody associates with Steve Jobs. It would always be the last thing in the presentation.

It was always, in Apple's case, the most amazing thing, right? And in terms of how it felt, you know, outside it was a carnival atmosphere, there were people hugging this new, Muse, how would I call it, the mascot for a muse. It's this cuddly sort of stuffy thing that represents their new AI agent. And when Mark Zuckerberg came on stage, people were really paying attention to him. And to his credit, he did a live demo. It worked this year. Last year, it didn't.

There we go. That's what happened. That's too bad. I don't know what happened. And, you know, that's always the thing, right, is Apple has actually completely stopped doing these live demos at their main product launch in September of every year. It's basically just a very long videotaped thing that they press play on and we all sit around and watch it for an hour and a half.

But to Mark Zuckerberg's credit, he actually did do a live demo and it worked. And I think the audience was pretty excited about that. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia. with a dark secret of the school's head teacher. This was someone I respected above anyone else. And the investigation led by students, he's trying to silence. This is world of secrets, catching my teacher.

Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I mean, Lily, hearing you describe this conference, I think that a lot of listeners will have a health. dose of skepticism and wonder really who is this for. It seems like an awfully clever marketing ploy to sell a product from a company is valued over to a trillion dollars, right? I mean, it's... Almost two trillion. Yeah, it's a huge company. Yes, it's a huge amount of money. And here's this company trust trying to sell a product and they're marketing it to folks. But who's the actual customer base? I mean, you describe an environment in Silicon Valley where people are, it seems curious

about this technology, I don't know that I've noticed anybody wearing these glasses. It's a fair point. And I think the data that we have is coming not from meta, but from the manufacturer of the glasses. They've said that they sold $7 million with an M in 2025. There are, you know, what, 350 million people in the United States. So that's not a ton of people. But it is a lot of growth from the prior year. So, you know, it's tripled from 2024. I do think that these are being marketed as something for the everyday consumer. But they have also, in their marketing materials, really touted the benefits that this line of product can have for people that can't see, that are visually impaired. And they've used veterans to make that case.

So I actually got to meet a couple of veterans at Meta headquarters who were using the glasses, who gave me examples of just how independent they feel that it's made them. They talked about how it can help them identify objects. It can help them read text. It can help them navigate where they're going. So not only were they in the audience at MetaConnect, but the company has also made clear that they're donating these smart glasses to any U.S. veteran that qualifies who has suffered from visual impairment as a result of their service. So what we heard from Meta is that they have these. new hearing enhancement software add-ins that are supported by their smart glasses. These are approved

by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration. And they're kind of similar to or competing with over-the-counter hearing aids. Oh, wow. And that's for people who have at least some hearing loss, maybe not for people with the most extreme cases of that, but mild to moderate hearing loss, there is that optionality there. I do want to say it's not just meta that's making this kind of device. Meta is considered the market leader, according to analysts that I've been speaking to. One told me that they hold about 70% of the current smart glasses market. But Google is getting back into this space after taking a break for the last decade. So we expect a new line of smart glasses to come from Google in the fall of

26, so that would just be in the next couple of weeks or months. And what's interesting about Google is that they're the ones who really kind of started all of this. Not that they were the first, but they were really the first ones to break through in the culture with their Google glasses in the early 2010s, I believe.

Google Glass could be on all of our faces by 2014. Just think in two years you could be one step closer to living like Lieutenant Jory LaForge. You might remember these. They were very obvious. They were kind of bulky looking, not the most attractive. Google co-founder, Sergi Brand said 2014 could be the year it hits the market. But first, only the bleeding edge techies at the conference get the pre-order the augmented reality glasses for $1,500 a pop. It looks a little

sci-fi. I just saw a photo of them. I looked them up earlier. They were a little sci-fi. Absolutely. The issue of privacy was a concern back then. And so that again was a problem even 10 plus years ago. But one thing I liked about them was that it was obvious when somebody was wearing them and actually having gotten to play with them back then, they were really cool. I remember one of my colleagues at a different news organization. We were at Davos for the World Economic Forum more than a decade ago now. And he actually pressed play and filmed himself walking into the main auditorium. And you could see like all the famous people that he was seeing going through security, including Christine Lagarde, who was the IMF head at the time.

She kind of looked at him quizzically as he was going through security as well. And it was just a really fun way to experience that venue for most of us, you know, most people will not get to go there and see it in person. But at the same time, you know, I think the style aspect was just such a punchline that that may be a big part of why they didn't take off. They were also pretty expensive, and I think that people weren't used to wearables in the way that they are now. So they're giving it another go. Apple is rumored to be thinking about it if they haven't already been working on it for the last 10 years, and we just don't have the evidence until the unveiling. We know Snap Inc.

is getting into this space. I just demoed in Los Angeles their new specs, as they're called, so their big bet is on augmented reality. So you're still immersed in the real world, but you can do things you could do on like those big VR goggles. So that would be like watching movies. You can have a little keyboard appear. And you can like type in a Google Doc using those glasses. Meta has something very similar that they unveiled this year,

but those are tethered. So you are still attached to something, whereas snaps are totally hands-free. One thing that really struck me about all this, Lily, is that it was not very long ago, just a few years ago, that Meta launched this thing called the Metaverse. It was a kind of virtual reality thing that Meta and Mark Zuckerberg really kind of bet the house on. They spent tens of billions of dollars on this project and it came to nothing and was canned completely at the beginning of 2026. Metaverse was a thing that you attached to your face. So for your next project to be another thing that you attach to your face is a bold move, arguably? I don't know. What do you make of that? Well, I know the metaverse is a punchline, but some would argue that this latest line of AI smart glass is coupled with this AI assistant and all the other functionalities that are there is just an extension of the metaverse.

It's sort of the next generation of that general concept. I do think also that based on my conversations with analysts, there is this sense that META hasn't had a breakthrough product in a very long time and that they are eager to make big bets and this is one of them and one that actually could pay off. That celebrities are into this. There's also, I think, a real emphasis on style. There was a recent New York Times profile of Mark Zuckerberg. And it wasn't in the technology section. It was in the fashion section of the newspaper. It was all about how his style has evolved.

Here's the person who was known for wearing hoodies everywhere he went. Now he's in the front row at a Prada fashion show wearing Prada. He is now known for this line of – Let's just say style may be in the eye of the behold. Fair enough. Fair enough. But I think throughout this conversation, you've gleaned a certain dose of skepticism of whether we could really wear glasses like this around our day-to-day lives, what function we

think it has, and maybe, look, maybe we're Luddites. That all being said, what makes tech companies think that the public is ready for smart classes? Yeah, and you're hardly alone. I think that this is part of the Silicon Valley ethos is you make big bets and you hope that a couple of them pan out. For investors, investors want to see growth. And so I think these companies, they feel compelled to keep unveiling new products. That is how they accrue street cred in Silicon Valley. That is how they also grow their valuation, their market capitalization. So that's partly why even if consumers aren't ready, I think they feel that they can make consumers ready.

I think, you know, the other thing that's really important to get across to critics of meta, they view this as not just an attempt to make money, but an attempt to distract from some of the other bad press and the other negative pieces of this company's story. And that has to do with things like child social media addiction, design features that are there to keep us scrolling on Instagram and Facebook for longer. That has been a dominant theme surrounding this company

over the last year, but even before that, we've also talked extensively about privacy issues. And so one critic that I spoke to said, all this stuff with these glasses and AI is just an attempt to turn the page to distract us from these, in her view, awful things that META has done. On that note, Lily, thank you for joining us back on the show. It's always a treat to have you with us.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Lily. Great to talk to you. That was Lily Jamali, the BBC's North America tech correspondent. We contacted Meta for comment and a spokesperson told us, our glasses continue to be very popular and were continuing to expand styles and features. The people who use them and those around them need to trust them. That's why every pair with a camera has a bright light on the front that blinks when you take a photo or video.

It can't be turned off and the camera is disabled if someone covers or tamper with it. Today's episode was produced by Hannah Moore. It was edited by Martine Powers and mixed by Travis Evans. Our technical producers were David Evans and Nathan Chamberlain. Our senior news editor is China Collins and I'm Tristan Redmond. See you again tomorrow. Cheerio. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret of the school's head teacher.

This was someone I respected above anyone else. And the investigation led by students, he's trying to silence. If this is leaked to the media, I'll be destroyed. This is World of Secrets, catching my teacher. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.