Smart glasses are already causing havoc in India

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Anuj Behal writes, Smart glasses are already causing havoc in India.

Shubhnam was packing boxes for a move into a new home when their friends sent them an Instagram video. The footage had only been up for a few hours, but it was days old, recorded at a Delhi protest in spring 2026 against a bill that would have narrowed the legal recognition of transgender people in India.

There, a content creator known for rage bait videos had approached Shubhnam, a 38-year-old trans feminine graphic designer and educator. Shubhnam, who uses a single chosen name, was dressed in a green sari with a shaved head, and the creator asked why they were wearing female clothing. Shubhnam told him to back off. Only when the video arrived, did they realize he had recorded the exchange on better smart glasses, styled to look like ordinary wayfarers. Edited into a mocking reel, the footage drew millions of views, along with transphobic abuse, reaction videos, and AI-generated memes. It spread from Instagram to X and YouTube. Copies remain online today.

For Shubhnam, the video has caused huge harm. All it took was one unconsented video to rewind two decades of progress that I made all on my own, they told MIT Technology Review. For a moment, it felt like this entire adult life I have lived was just a long, lucid dream, and I was going to wake up as that clueless queer child again. They haven't worn a sari outside their neighborhood since. Experts warn that many others will experience similar ordeals as smart glasses go mainstream. And they say privacy problems are becoming especially acute in India, where covert recording and the circulation of images without consent are already pervasive. Cases of cyberstalking, sex-stortion, deep fakes, and other forms of online abuse are growing in the country. And the chances of a crackdown on technology such as smart glasses are slim, given that Indian law enforcement authorities are themselves increasingly adopting AI-powered surveillance tools, including facial recognition systems and their own AI-enabled smart glasses.

Smart glasses are among the fastest growing devices in India's wearables market, according to the International Data Corporation, a research firm. And Reliance GEO, one of the country's largest telecommunications companies, says that later in 2026 it's set to launch a sub-$105 rival to Meta's glasses, the latest model of which have a $420 price tag in India. The core privacy issue is that these cameras don't look like cameras, so targets may not notice they're being recorded. Yet Meta rejects the idea that it's responsible for protecting people from intrusions, says Janusz Swierczynski, an Oxford-Saheed Business School researcher who studies privacy and emerging technology. More and more the expectation is being placed on bystanders to look out for themselves, he says. That means it's up to them to spot a small LED in the glasses frames that activates when recording is in progress. Meta also relies on wearers to behave responsibly, says Swierczynski.

Reliance Geo did not respond to our request for comment on privacy issues related to its upcoming glasses. Creators have already demonstrated ways to circumvent the recording light on Meta's glasses. Tutorials show users how to cover or otherwise obscure the LED while continuing to record. Back in March 2026, Wired documented a market for stealth mode modifications that physically disable the light or remove it entirely. All that makes covert recording easier, and the risks are not borne equally. Svichinsky says women and other marginalized groups face greater harm when inconspicuous devices capture and circulate footage without consent, as happened to Shubhnam. The bigger problem, however, is that in India, smart glasses aren't just being used to turn ordinary people into targets of viral pranks. They're also being adopted as a tool of police surveillance.

In June 2026, when thousands of young demonstrators gathered to protest problems with the country's education system, Delhi police used meta-smart glasses to record them. In fact, a petition filed by former Javaharlal Nehru University Students Union president Aisha Ghosh, before the Delhi High Court, alleged that police had filmed protesters continuously for weeks, including while they were eating and resting. It also alleged that the police had threatened to send footage of student demonstrators to their parents and colleges. In July 2026, India's Solicitor General dismissed the case in court as luxury litigation. Instead of investigating the students' complaints, police turned on the students themselves, opening 10 criminal investigations for offences including rioting, assault on public servants, and damage to public property. Some of the protesters who spoke to MIT Technology Review on condition of anonymity say they never saw the LED on the Meta AI glasses police wore during the demonstrations.