Germany’s conference of federal and state data protection authorities has endorsed a Hamburg regulator’s examination of Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses and warned that AI-assisted facial recognition in public spaces would be impermissible under its reading of privacy law. The group also said people wearing camera-equipped glasses can bear responsibility for recording others, even when the device looks much like ordinary eyewear.
The Datenschutzkonferenz, or DSK, is the forum in which Germany’s privacy regulators coordinate their positions. Its new statement follows a technical and legal review by Hamburg’s data protection commissioner of the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer glasses. That review focused on how easily the glasses can capture people without their awareness and on the difficulty of obtaining meaningful consent.
According to the DSK, the EU General Data Protection Regulation applies when images or videos of other people are recorded and processed outside activity that is exclusively personal or family-related. This can include a private wearer who captures third parties beyond that setting or makes the footage available to others. The regulators said an illuminated recording indicator is often hard for bystanders to notice and does not, on its own, provide the advance information required for informed consent.
They said an affected person would need to be told beforehand who is processing the recording, how to contact that person and what the recording is for. The DSK added that using footage of third parties to train AI generally lacks a legal basis. Its statement also describes AI-based face recognition in public spaces as impermissible. These are the regulators’ stated legal positions, not a new statute or an order banning all smart glasses.
The distinction between a recording device and a deployed identification system matters for Meta’s product. Researchers found dormant face-recognition code in the glasses’ companion app earlier this year, and Meta licensed technology for internal testing. The capability was not active in the consumer product described in that reporting.
The regulators acknowledged that smart glasses can help blind users and people who need hands-free navigation at work. They urged manufacturers to build privacy safeguards into device design so wearers can comply with data-protection requirements, and called for German or European lawmakers to consider the wider public-space questions raised by the technology.
Sources: German Data Protection Conference statement, Hamburg Data Protection Commissioner
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
