Hyderabad: While protesting the Trans Amendment Bill 2026 at a public rally, Shabnam was approached by a man wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Unaware that she was being secretly recorded, she attempted to answer what initially appeared to be a genuine question about the protest.
The interaction quickly took a turn into a transphobic line of questioning.
Weeks later, when the video surfaced on social media, she became a target of Internet memes and bullying.
Privacy and consent in the world of smart glasses
The video, recorded and shared without her consent, became an example of the privacy concerns surrounding AI-enabled smart glasses. While the interaction itself involved mocking and transphobic questioning, the harassment that followed online proved far more damaging.
Growing demand for the glasses, especially for their discreet photo and video capturing features, has raised concerns regarding privacy, consent and the consequences of sharing the footage online without the permission of the people recorded.
Another strain of concerns is the technology itself.
Integration of Artificial Intelligence, facial recognition capabilities and questions about how the photos, videos and data captured by smart glasses are stored, processed and used are also being debated.
The advent of ‘Glassholes’
About a decade ago, Google introduced its smart spectacles by the name Google Glass.
The move triggered a major debate on the ethical concerns of being filmed covertly. The backlash was so widespread that some businesses banned ‘Glassholes’, those wearing Google Glasses, from entry into their establishments.
‘Glassholes’ came to mean the people wearing Google Glasses with seemingly little regard for the privacy of those around them.
The business of smart glasses
Currently, Meta claims that its AI-integrated Ray Ban glasses are the ‘No. 1 selling AI glasses’.
The French eyewear brand EssilorLuxottica announced the sale of Meta AI-powered Ray Ban glasses more than tripled in the last year. Over 7 million AI glasses were sold in 2025, whereas the sales for the glasses were up from the 2 million that the company sold in 2023 and 2024 combined.
Violating privacy at a protest
The incident involving Shabnam, recorded using Meta Glasses, was uploaded to Instagram on May 26 by user ‘parley.96’.
The video shows the Instagram user filming a video while interacting with people at a protest. The user approached Shabnam, who was clad in a saree. According to Shabnam, it is common for passersby to approach protesters and ask about the cause they are supporting. When the person recording the video using smart glasses approached her, she believed they were genuinely seeking information.
However, when the individual asked what she needed ‘Azadi’ (freedom) from and questioned her choice of wearing a saree, she noticed a group of his friends standing a few feet away laughing. Having experienced bullying in the past, Shabnam said she recognised the signs that she was being mocked and ended the interaction.
The video particularly targets and mocks members of the LGBTQ+ community, ridicules them for their identities, and questions the legitimacy of the protest.
Screenshots from the video were subsequently turned into memes and circulated across platforms, further amplifying the harassment, trolling and internet bullying directed at Shabnam.
The viral video shared to Instagram by ‘parley.96’ multiple times between May 26 and June 4 alone raked in over 74 million views.
Viral video also exposes homophobia
At the end of the video, Instagram user ‘parlye.96’ walked up to a group of police officers seemingly posted at the place of protest.
While talking to the police officers, he posed a hypothetical question to one of the police officers, asking about their response if their child turned out to be gay.
One officer responded calmly, saying, “All fingers of the hand aren’t the same,” suggesting that people have unique identities. However, another officer said without hesitation, “Haddi tod denge” (I will break his bones).
While the interaction with Shabnam has transphobic undertones to it, the exchange with the police officers also reveals attitudes towards homosexuality that continue to persist in sections of society
Another angle shows how smart glasses recorded the interaction
Another video showing the incident from a different angle was shared by the same Instagram user. In this video, we can clearly see that no hand-held cameras or smartphones were used to record the viral video; it was recorded using smart glasses.
The person who was filmed later made a video identifying herself as ‘Shabnam’, reacting to the incident and its aftermath. She said it had been recorded without her permission at the protest against the Trans Amendment Bill 2026.
Calling it a violation of her consent, she said the footage had been uploaded to social media multiple times, downloaded and reshared by other users, and edited and manipulated using AI.
The Instagram account ‘parley.96’ features several videos recorded using smart glasses, in which many unsuspecting members are subjected to derogatory pranks and practical jokes deliberately without their permission, leaving them open to online ridicule and mockery.
Smart glasses footage used to spread fake news
The viral video was also later shared on social media with claims linking it to the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protest that took place in Jantar Mantar, Delhi on June 6.
NewsMeter debunked the claims and found that the video is likely connected to a protest against the Trans Amendment Bill 2026 that took place in Delhi on March 29.
However, concerns surrounding covert recording using smart glasses extend beyond simply filming people and uploading the footage to social media.
With AI now integrated into these devices, questions are also being raised about facial recognition, data privacy and the handling of the content users capture.
Increasing ‘Glassholes’ incidents
Recently, an extortion incident involving a video filmed using smart glasses came to light when a woman, who preferred not to be named, told the BBC that a man approached her at a London shopping centre. Their interaction was recorded and uploaded on social media. When the woman reached out to him asking for the video to be taken down, he asked her for money.
TikTok removed a video shared by a social media user who calls himself a ‘POV [point of view] Prankster’ for violating its rules around adult sexual abuse.
The video, reportedly filmed using smart glasses, depicts a young woman receiving emergency medical care from paramedics.
In a different incident, the internet has also applauded a woman who reportedly broke the smart glasses of a TikTok user, eth8n, who was admittedly making ‘funny noises’ and recording in a New York Subway.
Two engineering students were disqualified, and the exam was stopped after they were caught wearing Meta glasses during a college examination. The incident took place on May 19 at Pune’s Symbiosis Institute of Technology.
‘Scientology Run’, rizz-caming and documenting protests
On March 31, TikTok user ‘Swhileyy’ jogged through the lobby of a Church of Scientology building in Hollywood, wearing smart glasses. The video was uploaded to social media, raked millions of views, prompting a wave of ‘Scientology Run’ copycat videos.
As speed runs through Scientology churches trended, incidents turned disruptive. Another group of youth broke through a locked door to gain entry to the Church of Scientology on West 36th Street in Manhattan. The church said that the group threw objects, damaged the property and injured a staff member as visitors attended a seminar.
Similar incidents have prompted police investigations and tightening of security at the Scientology churches.
Part of the appeal of the trend appears to stem from public curiosity about what happens inside the buildings of the Church of Scientology, which is known for its secrecy.
On May 31, one young man entered Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar temple wearing Meta glasses, with his two friends. When the temple security noticed this, they caught the three of them and confiscated the smart glasses.
Another growing social media trend associated with smart cameras is known as ‘Rizz-caming’, where creators film themselves approaching and flirting with strangers before uploading the interactions online. Many such videos attract millions of views, with some creators using smart glasses modified to remove recording indicator lights.
The devices are also being used by activists, journalists and content creators to document protests and public events.
Speaking to investigative journalist Joanna Stern, one media representative reportedly said she used Meta glasses modified to disable the recording indicator light while documenting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at a protest in Minneapolis without being detected.
Students add facial recognition to AI glasses
In October 2024, two Harvard students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, went viral for their I-XRAY project, which demonstrated how Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses could be combined with facial-recognition and AI tools to identify strangers and retrieve publicly available personal information, raising concerns about the privacy implications of wearable AI technology.
According to reports, the same results could be achieved with any regular phone camera, and smart glasses were just a tool the Harvard students used for this project. The project exposes how easily facial recognition features could be added to the glasses.
Meta strips Facial Recognition Code (FRC) after reports
Days after WIRED reported that Meta added Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) code into an app installed on more than 50 million phones, the tech giant reportedly backtracked and removed the code.
The report published on June 8 reads, “The most recent version of Meta AI, a companion app for its line of smart glasses, strips out the unactivated software components that powered the system Meta internally called NameTag.”
NameTag is an unreleased facial recognition feature developed by Meta for its smart glasses. The initial WIRED report published on June 4 found that Meta had quietly integrated NameTag components into the Meta AI app, downloaded by users, as early as January. Though never publicly enabled, the technology was designed to create unique biometric signatures from faces captured by smart glasses and compare them against stored face data.
Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, called the reporting ‘incredibly misleading’ and ‘absolutely dishonest.’
Police use AI glasses and facial recognition for surveillance
AI smart glasses technology is already finding applications beyond consumer use.
Ahead of the Republic Day celebrations in 2026, reports stated that Delhi Police planned to deploy AI-enabled smart glasses as part of its security arrangements. According to Doordarshan News, the glasses were equipped with a built-in camera linked to a mobile application and a database of around 65,000 criminals, allowing police personnel to scan faces in real time and receive alerts if a wanted individual was detected.
As such devices are used as tools for surveillance and public safety, concerns about the broader implications of wearable technologies capable of recording, identifying and tracking individuals without obvious notice still remain largely unresolved.
It’s not all that bad, says industry
However, Meta says its smart glasses have many functions, especially in building accessibility for everyone. It says its glasses can help blind and low-vision users navigate, read text and understand their surroundings through voice-assisted descriptions.
The devices also enable hands-free photo and video capture, allowing people with limited mobility to document their lives using voice commands.
Other features include hands-free video calls, voice controls during calls and real-time captions on Meta platforms. Third-party applications such as OOrion and Aira further expand these capabilities by helping users locate objects, read text, detect obstacles and access on-demand visual interpretation services.
Meta glasses LED indicator light and covert recording
On its website, Meta claims that the LED lets others know when you’re filming content using the glasses. If the LED has been covered, users will be notified to clear it.
However, there are still ways to record without the LED light alerting those around.
Journalist Joanna Stern posted a video on her investigation into ‘modders’ facilitating the removal of the indicator light to turn the glasses into ‘Spy Cameras’.
In the video, Stern contacts a modder who agrees to film the process of the indicator light being disabled. First, the glass that protects the light housing was shattered, then the light itself was drilled out and the cavity left behind was filled with resin and cured under UV light. This is not the only process of disabling an indicator light on the Meta glasses. There are many more methods posted online by people who aim to hack the glasses so that videos can be recorded without alerting those around them.
Meta states clearly that the user ‘may not tamper with the Glasses or otherwise obscure or modify any of the features on the Glasses that signal to others that the Glasses are recording.’ Tampering with the indicator light on the Meta AI glasses is a violation of Meta’s Terms of Service.
Questions over content review
In a report detailing the joint investigation by Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, it was found that videos recorded by Meta glasses were sent to data annotators working to train the AI by reviewing and annotating clips.
The work was subcontracted by Meta to a Kenyan technology contractor firm, Sama. The workers revealed during the investigation that they had allegedly viewed highly intimate recordings, including people using the toilet, undressing, having sex and watching porn, along with personal banking information like card details.
In just two months after the report was published, Meta cancelled its contract with Sama, stating that the company did not meet its standards, prompting the decision to cut ties. Sama, however, rejected the allegations, stating that the company met all quality and integrity standards.
What does the law say?
In Pennsylvania, lawmakers introduced a bill requiring smart glasses manufactured, sold and used in the state to have a visual indicator to tell others when they are being recorded. The bill also aims to prohibit anyone from disabling the visual indicator on a pair of smart glasses.
India has legal provisions to deal with voyeurism and privacy violations.
Sections under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (earlier IPC) criminalise acts of capturing or disseminating images of private acts without consent. While Meta’s terms prohibit users from disabling the indicator light, the legal implications of doing so under Indian law remain unclear.
Videos of seemingly ordinary interactions recorded using smart glasses have garnered millions of views online, with some quickly spiralling into extortion, cyberbullying and harassment.
As smart glasses become more common, the question is no longer whether people can be recorded without their knowledge, but what happens after that footage is captured and uploaded online.
