California Vetoes Its First Smart Glasses Privacy Bill
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed Senate Bill 1130, which would have made it illegal to secretly record people with wearable recording devices. TechCrunch The bill was titled the Wearable Device Privacy Protection Act. LexisNexis The veto was reported Oct. 1, 2026. It stopped what would have been the first state regulation of smart glasses use. TechCrunch
SB 1130 was written by State Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes. It would have barred recording in public places without explicit consent, meaning clear and direct permission. TechCrunch Violators could have faced fines or prison time. Makers of wearables that did not comply could also have faced fines. TechCrunch
Newsom gave two reasons for refusing to sign it. He said the bill defines wearable recording devices too broadly and imprecisely, which could cause confusion and unintended consequences. He also said it includes protections that already exist in California law. TechCrunch
Reyes had framed the bill as a way for California to respond to fast-moving always-listening technology, devices that continuously take in audio or video so they are ready to respond. That concern lines up with public unease about camera-equipped wearables. Critics and consumers have dubbed them "pervert glasses" after reports of people being recorded and harassed. TechCrunch
The broader context here is about definitions, and definitions decide whether a law can be enforced. A wearable recording device sounds specific. In practice it covers phones, glasses, pins, pendants and wrist devices that can capture audio, video, still images or sensor data. It is like trying to write one traffic rule for bicycles, cars and skateboards at once. A broad law can catch harmless uses along with covert recording. A narrow law is easier to work around. This bill was broad, and enforcement would have been messy.
Looking at what this means for builders, the compliance problem is direct. If makers face fines, they need a rule they can test in a product. What counts as recording. What counts as consent. How that consent is asked for, signaled and stored. Without those answers, disputes fall to individual encounters in public, where intent and notice are hard to reconstruct after the fact. That burden would land on users, reviewers, platform trust teams and courts, with little shared evidence to settle who knew what and when.
In my view, the veto does not settle the underlying tension. Discomfort with covert recording is real. Consent in public is a simple principle with difficult execution. Explicit permission works well in a software prompt, the kind of pop-up that asks to use a camera. It works poorly on a crowded sidewalk. Any workable rule will need to separate continuous sensing from deliberate recording, and deliberate recording from sharing. It will also need to fit with existing California privacy protections rather than restate them in broader language.
For technology professionals, the design questions are still open and worth weighing. Notice methods, access controls, how long recordings are kept by default, and audit trails, or records of who accessed what, all affect whether a device feels trustworthy. Clearer norms about when recording is happening and who can see the result would help adoption more than either unlimited capture or a ban that cannot be enforced. The long arc still points to useful, ambient assistance from these devices, but only if the rules of capture are clear to everyone in the room, not only the wearer.
