Bans on Smart Glasses Mean Smart Glasses are HERE TO STAY - DTNS 5317

**Tom Merritt** (0:09)
This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, July 24th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you important context, and help each other understand.

**Huyen Tue Dao** (0:19)
Today, the backlash increases against smart classes with UK Comic Cons banning them, and Tech Org's call for protection of open weight models. Well, I'm not OpenAI and Anthropic, but maybe you would have guessed that.

**Tom Merritt** (0:32)
I would have. I'm Tom Merritt.

**Huyen Tue Dao** (0:33)
I would bet that.

**Tom Merritt** (0:35)
Let's start with what you need to know with that big story.
Yeah, so the backlash against smart glasses isn't getting less. In fact, as usual, most of it is focused on the most popular brand, Meta, and it's Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses. But there are a lot of these out here. And in fact, the UK's Monopoly events says it will no longer allow wearable recording devices of any kind, whether it's Meta or not, at its events. And they do a lot of events in the UK, including the Comic Cons in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and one in the northeast of England. If you get caught at one of these events and you're using one of these, you'll be asked to leave. They wrote, the vast majority of the talent and agents at our events felt that these were a violation of their privacy and were damaging and spoiling the interactions at the tables. Several expressed concerns that they might not continue to attend in-person events if they are being recorded in secret. We had similar feedback from event attendees, many of whom are not comfortable with the knowledge that other convention goers might be filling them without consent. Now, it's worth pointing out, the glasses do have the LED lights on them. And yes, you can also record people with your phone, but there is a material different reaction to the glasses, especially because it is not impossible for you to circumvent the little LED light or in bright light, not just not notice it's there or just not be kind of yet in the habit of looking for it. Also, this move is being criticized by some for affecting accessibility as there's a lot of vision impaired people that use smart glasses to help them move around.
And this would then be a problem if they are not allowed to use the glasses for that point. Did not hear anything from Monopoly events about that, at least not yet. BBC noted that earlier this week, ferry operator CalMac said that a visitor to the bridge, you know, like on a boat, the bridge, had recorded video of a restricted area without permission using the smart glasses and therefore CalMac was pausing all public bridge visits until further notice. Meta itself is taking action. Instagram head Adam Asary posted that the platform is going to take down any content where it can determine the video was recorded surreptitiously without the consent of the person being recorded. And Instagram has now banned several accounts for harassment based on these kinds of videos.
We're now in that world. It kind of reminds me when smartphone cameras, even actually before smartphones, when cameras started arriving on phones and there was a lot of consternation and policies and places where you couldn't bring a phone that had a camera on it. You know, we're now in that world for glasses.

**Huyen Tue Dao** (3:24)
Yeah, I will say like, and this is something that maybe if you're a congo or a convention goer, you have noticed, but that we also have built some practices around it to make it better.
If you maybe have been to a convention where they will have different colored lanyards and will allow attendees on participation to say, hey, please opt me out, like, please. Like I don't want to be in photos. So that generally refers to, of course, like official photography, but also just regular people's like, hey, please be respectful of people that wear x colored lanyard because they don't want to be photographed.
So I think that we're just as a society in general, we're just more aware of like our images ending up in places. We may not necessarily want them. I don't think it's unfair for that to be extended to recording devices, especially things like a Comic Con where I mean, I suppose if you're having a Comic Con with say Spider-Man or the upcoming cast of Marvel's Doom Day, this might not affect them as much. But some folks do make a living out of being at tables and actually having the correct fees and transactions for if you want a picture with them or if you want to photograph with them. So I remember that also as well back when I used to go to icons more regularly that yeah, when smartphones came by, if you were caught sort of like not being in the paying line and taking a photo, you were like, sorry, that's not really allowed, which feels bad as the person who just really wants a picture of your favorite celebrity or actor or whoever. But of course, there's an impact to that, which why it feels bad, but it is understandable. So for me, I feel like a lot of that is an extension of this. I don't know, how do you feel about the accessibility part of it, which I think is definitely very significant and should not be ignored. But I don't know, what do you think about that?