Norway to Smart Glasses: We See You Seeing Us
Norway's Ministry of Digitalisation just said it wants to regulate smart glasses more tightly, with Minister Karianne Tung floating an outright ban on facial recognition of strangers in public. The trigger: growing unease over camera-equipped wearables like Meta's Ray-Bans, especially after code hinting at a facial recognition feature turned up in the Meta AI app. Germany's already fielding criminal complaints over similar devices, and EU regulators are drafting their own privacy report. Smart glasses were supposed to be the next iPhone moment. Instead they're becoming the next moral panic.
Why it matters
Meta has bet big on smart glasses as its post-smartphone platform, but if governments start banning key features like facial recognition, the whole category could get gutted before it scales. Norway could be the first domino in a wider European crackdown.