Germany Says Meta's Smart Glasses Might Be Illegal. Here's Why.

A human rights group in Berlin called HateAid has filed a criminal complaint against Meta, claiming that the company's smart glasses break German law because they can record people without those people knowing.

Reuters and Politico EU, which first reported the complaint on August 12, 2026, note that the filing cites a German law that bans selling hidden recording devices. HateAid says that putting the glasses on the market is a criminal offense under this law. The complaint names Meta, its eyewear partners Ray-Ban and Oakley, and several retailers.

The heart of HateAid's argument is simple: if you are standing near someone wearing these glasses, you cannot reliably tell whether they are recording you. The group wants restrictions on where the glasses can record, pointing to existing German rules for dashcams (cameras mounted on car dashboards) and bodycams (cameras worn by police officers) as an example to follow.

Meta's smart glasses do have some privacy features. A small LED light flashes while the glasses are recording, and the software is designed to stop the camera from working if someone tries to mess with that light. A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the glasses were "built with privacy safeguards from the ground up that go beyond what any smartphone offers."

HateAid says those safeguards are not good enough. Several companies sell add-on products that block or cover the recording light without setting off Meta's tamper-detection software. Because of this, a bystander cannot tell the difference between a working indicator light and one that has been covered up.

The complaint also raises concerns about what happens to the recordings. Meta's AI features send information about what the wearer sees to Meta for processing, and the company uses outside contractors to review and label some of that material so its AI systems can learn from it. A Swedish newspaper reported that contractors in Kenya who do this work for Meta came across intimate and sensitive footage captured through the glasses, including nudity, bathroom footage, and sexual content.

In June, Meta removed unused facial-recognition code from the smart glasses companion app after Wired discovered it was there. The code was not turned on, but its presence raised questions about the company's data practices around the device.

German law treats recording devices differently depending on whether people nearby can tell they are being recorded. A smartphone held up in the air is clearly recording. A device that can capture footage without any clear external signal is treated as a hidden recording device. HateAid says the smart glasses fall into the second category, or at least can easily be made to work that way.

The German law cited by HateAid was written before smart glasses existed, but its language is broad enough to cover them. If prosecutors take the case, it could set a precedent for whether a product's privacy features need to actually work well enough that the device no longer counts as a hidden recorder.

Dashcams and bodycams offer a useful comparison. Both are legal in Germany, but only under strict conditions. Bodycams are limited to police use. Dashcam footage is only admissible in court under specific circumstances, and continuously recording public spaces is generally not allowed. HateAid is not asking for an outright ban on smart glasses. The group wants them subject to similar location-based restrictions.

Meta's defense is that its safeguards go beyond what a smartphone offers, since a smartphone can record video discreetly with no external indicator at all. The counterargument is that a smartphone is a general-purpose device you carry in your pocket or hold in your hand. Smart glasses sit on your face, always pointing at whatever you see, and are designed to work without your hands. That difference changes the risk for anyone standing near the wearer, even though the recording technology itself is nothing new.

By naming Ray-Ban, Oakley, and retailers in the complaint, HateAid is going after the entire distribution chain, not just the company that made the technology. Under the German law cited, selling a banned device can itself be a crime, so any business that puts the product on the German market could face legal exposure.

The broader context here is that this is not the first time face-worn cameras have run into privacy concerns. Google Glass faced a similar backlash in 2013 over its built-in camera, and the product never reached wide consumer release. The technology has improved since then, and partnerships with well-known eyewear brands have made the glasses more socially acceptable. But the core tension between a camera worn on the face and the expectation that you will not be recorded in public has not gone away. In my view, this complaint may push the issue into the courts, where the rules can be set clearly rather than left to individual companies to decide.