Meta · New York · TikTok · The Guardian Technology
US police fear Meta smart glasses could be tapped to secretly record them
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In January, the New York police department’s counter-terrorism unit sent out a memo warning police officers about a new potential “security and counterintelligence” threat: Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
Key facts
- In August, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said that smart glasses qualify as body-worn cameras, which means they can’t be worn in the “federal workspace”, according to a memo
- The FBI had alerted local agencies like the NYPD that the perpetrator of the attack biked around Bourbon street twice at the end of 2024 wearing smart glasses
- In an August 2025 document, the NYPD wrote that while new AI technology could “significantly transform day-to-day police operations” that police would also need to address public fears about the use
- The memo was a response to “ AI 2027 ”, a paper written by a former OpenAI researcher and other industry experts proffering what the future of AI development could look like and the effect it
Summary
The memo directed officers to “conduct thorough inspections of all eyewear permitted within inmate cells” and cautioned that people who have been arrested could use these glasses, equipped with small cameras and microphones, to record inside police facilities. “The ability to covertly record inside a law enforcement or detention facility, could result in a security risk if proprietary information about cell layouts, camera placements, or officer patrol/site protection routines are released,” the memo read. The NYPD memo is one of a dozen, previously unreported and reviewed by the Guardian, that showed law enforcement agencies across the US are increasingly concerned about the potential for smart glasses to be used against them.