The internet is calling them 'pervert glasses.' Here's what Meta's smart glasses can actually do

Meta's camera glasses film women who never find out, and the warning light can be defeated. Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images Article content The only sign that a pair of Meta glasses is recording you is a small white light on the frame, and it can be defeated. Sign In or Create an Account Email Address Continue or View more offers Article content Men are using the camera glasses to film women who do not know it is happening, and not only on the street. It is happening in gyms, in bathrooms and in change rooms. The footage lands on Instagram and TikTok, where the women in it are identified and mocked in the comments. Article content Article content Article content For these reasons, news outlets such as The Guardian , Wired and Vox , among countless others, have dubbed them “pervert glasses,” a term that also found its way into a recent Jimmy Kimmel monologue and skit. Article content NP Posted Get a dash of perspective along with the trending news of the day in a very readable format. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Sign Up By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Article content The glasses are built not to be noticed. They look like ordinary sunglasses, and the light is the only warning anyone gets that a camera is running. Article content Meta launched a cheaper second line in June with EssilorLuxottica , the eyewear group that owns Ray-Ban and Oakley, starting at $409 in Canada and carrying neither brand name. One of the three styles was designed with Kylie Jenner. They went on sale here at launch. Article content Meta’s Kylie edition glasses on display in an electronic store in New York City. Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images Article content The most visible use is the pickup video, where a man approaches a woman in public, films the exchange without telling her and posts it. Suzie Dunn , an assistant professor of law at Dalhousie University who researches technology-facilitated gender-based violence, said the point is not the woman. Article content “I don’t think they’re genuinely trying to pick up these women,” Dunn said. Article content Rather, she said the videos are meant to be instructional, aimed at men who pay to learn the technique. Article content Article content “Many of these people are trying to gain followers. They often sell classes or other types of subscription-based models where people pay them to show how to be a pick-up artist,” she said. Article content Read More U.S. teen withdraws lawsuit against Meta over social media addiction Meta says it has axed 750,000 Facebook and Instagram youth accounts in Australia Article content The women find out later. Article content “Once their images are published, they’ve been identified. Often their school will be identified, their workplace will be identified, sometimes their phone number or their social media accounts will get contacted by people who will critique their appearance, will critique the way that they reacted to this pickup artist,” Dunn said. Article content Dunn separates that from a second category. Article content “There’s the other context which is, you know, filming in bathrooms, filming in change rooms, filming during sexual activities and that’s a different category of non-consensual filming than the pick-up artists,” she said. Article content Olivia Avison, a peer support worker at the Digital Sexual Violence Support Centre in Mississauga and a master of social work candidate, said the settings are ordinary. It can happen anywhere “from a park to a library,” she said. She also manages a massage therapy clinic, where she said there would be “zero acceptance” of anyone recording. Trending Carney says 'work still to be done,' while Trump touts a deal and pauses tariffs News The internet is calling them 'pervert glasses.' Here's what Meta's smart glasses can actually do News As the petition grows, here's what would happen if Carney actually booted the U.S. ambassador News Ontario judge sentences handgun trafficker to house arrest after mandatory minimum declared unconstitutional Canada Daily Horoscope - Wednesday, August 19, 2026 Horoscopes Article content Meta’s answer is the light. The company says the capture LED blinks briefly when a photo is taken and keeps blinking through a video, that it has no off switch, and that it is there so everyone around the wearer knows they are recording. Covering it with tape has disabled the camera since the second generation. Article content The company said in a July 7 blog post that it was going further. Article content “We are continuously improving our ability to detect tampering, and now we’re updating the glasses to disable the camera if they detect the LED was physically tampered with or destroyed,” Meta said in the post. The update is mandatory and covers Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta and Meta’s own line. Article content Meta’s Oakley glasses on display in an electronic store. Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images Article content Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity advisor at the security firm ESET who bought a pair and tested them, said that is not the end of it. The light “can be switched off or hidden with a worryingly simple modification,” he said in an email to National Post. Article content “The fact this is possible is extremely worrying and shows that Meta has built the glasses without a privacy focus,” he wrote. Article content Moore has told Meta about the workaround and is holding the technical details while he waits for the company to respond. He’s not aware of any plans to fix it. Article content Article content His advice does not depend on the light at all. Article content “If people don’t see an LED light switched on, they should still assume that the glasses could still in fact be recording,” Moore wrote. Article content Meta acknowledged questions from National Post about the recording light and the modifications but did not provide answers by deadline. Article content Dunn sees the same thing from the other side. People who want the light off find each other online, she said. Article content “If you go on to places on the internet where these communities exist, they provide each other with instructions on how to do it. And so far, it seems that they have been very effective in learning how to turn the light off.” Article content Section 162 of the Criminal Code makes it voyeurism to secretly record someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and carries up to five years in prison. Article content Dunn said that covers the change room. Article content “If someone has turned off the light of their glasses, they haven’t told the person that they’re recording. And if the person is in a private place, such as a bathroom, a change room, a bedroom, even if there’s no sexual activity going on … that would be covered under voyeurism,” she said. Article content Article content Voyeurism requires a sexual purpose or a private setting, and a pickup video may be neither. Article content “It would be interesting to see a legal case go through to see how the courts would interpret that if surreptitiously made pickup videos could be captured under something like voyeurism,” Dunn said. “It’s not clear.” Article content Ottawa’s most recent move is the Safe Social Media Act , introduced June 10, which targets seven kinds of harmful content and requires social media services to take down material that sexually victimizes children and intimate content shared without consent. It says nothing about a person filming a stranger in public. Article content Filming strangers in public is generally legal in Canada, and Dunn does not dispute that — “It’s not inappropriate to take photos in public,” she said — but what has changed is the volume and the purpose. Article content How much of it is happening in Canada is unknown. Avison works at one of the only Canadian organizations dedicated to digital sexual violence and has not had a single case involving the glasses. The issue “isn’t something that’s come to my attention yet, but I’m sure it’s bound to happen,” she said. Article content Some places have already drawn a line. Gyms and gym change rooms increasingly have explicit no-filming rules, Dunn said, and she expects more venues to follow. The Berlin nightclub Berghain covers the cameras on every phone at the door. Article content Removing a video is harder. People usually start with their municipal police, Avison said, who have a technological unit that deals with cybercrime but often send them back to the platform. From there it is the social media company or Google, and nobody hands you a set of steps. Article content “There aren’t straightforward instructions,” she said. “So it’s very, very confusing and very, very tedious.” Article content In her experience, it takes a few weeks, Avison said, and then it starts again. Article content “The second you take down one photo, another one is up,” she said, noting that people end up searching for themselves for hours, looking for copies. Article content For Dunn, the fix is not a better warning light. Article content “I think they should stop making the glasses,” she said. Article content Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here . Article content Share this article in your social network Share this Story : National Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr