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Meta disables camera on smart glasses when recording LED is covered, launches awareness campaign
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Meta is closing a loophole in its AI-powered smart glasses that let wearers cover the front-facing LED after starting a recording to covertly capture video, and is running a billboard campaign to publicize the capture light.
The fix targets a specific bypass where covering the LED mid-recording previously allowed continued covert capture, a gap that fueled harassment and privacy concerns around the glasses. Meta is pairing the software update with a marketing push in high-sales communities to educate bystanders about the recording indicator.
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The camera will now stop working if the LED capture light is covered during a recording, closing a bypass where wearers covered the light after recording began.
Meta is launching a campaign in communities where glasses sales have been popular, including a Los Angeles billboard explaining that the LED signals when photos or videos are being captured.
The update follows a prior fix from Meta that disabled the camera when wearers physically tampered with the capture light.
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Meta's smart glasses already disabled the camera if the LED capture light was covered before recording started, but wearers found they could start a recording first and then cover the light to continue capturing covertly. The new update closes that mid-recording bypass: the camera now stops working if the LED is covered during an active recording. Alex Himel, Meta's vice president of augmented reality, announced the change in a post on Threads.
This is the second recent fix targeting the capture light. A little over a month earlier, Meta updated the glasses to turn off the camera when wearers physically tampered with the LED. Himel frames the successive patches as evidence that Meta's protections are working, noting that only a tiny minority of people try to circumvent them and that the effort required to do so reflects the effectiveness of the safeguards.
The privacy fixes arrive amid broader concerns about the glasses being used to record people without consent and to film social media pranks on bystanders. A report about Meta adding a facial recognition feature compounded those worries and helped drive a global campaign against the smart glasses. The Verge's own coverage has described the glasses as a workplace menace and criticized Meta's rollout.
Alongside the software fix, Meta is running a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the capture LED in communities where glasses sales have been popular. A billboard currently displayed in Los Angeles shows the glasses with the caption that the camera lets you capture the moment and the light lets everyone around you know when you do. A Meta video similarly states that the LED signals when the glasses are capturing photos and videos, and that no light means no capture. Meta spokesperson Albert Aydin confirmed the campaign to The Verge.
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