Anyone arriving at a court building in England or Wales wearing Meta's smart glasses will now have them taken at the entrance and handed back on the way out. The Guardian reported the ban, which comes from His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service — the body responsible for criminal, civil and family courts across both countries.
The reasoning is not complicated. Recording equipment has never been allowed inside a courtroom, and these glasses have a camera in them. What makes them a different problem from a camera is that nobody around the wearer can tell when it is running. In principle someone could sit through an entire hearing capturing all of it while everyone present assumed they were simply wearing spectacles.
A court spokesperson put it plainly to the paper: there are clear limits on taking photographs or video inside courts and tribunals, and that is precisely why these glasses are not permitted. Those limits carry real weight. Filming or photographing in a court building without permission is an offence, and it can be prosecuted as contempt.
Phones were treated differently. The service allows them into courtrooms provided nobody uses them to record, and it has decided the same latitude cannot be extended to eyewear. The distinction is a practical one — you cannot strap a handset to your face and film the room without anyone noticing.
One London case has already turned on smart glasses, though the camera was not the issue. Earlier this year a man was accused of being fed answers during cross-examination through a pair, using their speakers and a link to a phone nearby. He has denied it.
American courts have reached the same conclusion. New York recently announced its own ban, and said outright that the point was to stop covert recording.
The rejection extends well past the legal system. Venues across the United Kingdom have barred the glasses — the pub chain Wetherspoons, a number of expensive restaurants, private members' clubs, theatres, music venues and comic conventions among them. In some quarters they have picked up the nickname "pervert glasses", and the reason is documented rather than speculative.
Researchers at the University of Sydney found hundreds of videos posted to Instagram in which men producing seduction content had filmed women without their knowledge. Roughly six in ten of those clips showed conduct the study classified as possible harassment, and a good number of the women in them were identified by name and had their details circulated.
Meta has shown little sign of being troubled by any of this. Its chief executive was recently in court himself, defending claims about social media addiction, and people in his party wore the glasses into the proceedings — the judge had to raise the prospect of contempt before they came off. Asked about the court ban, the company declined to comment.
It is not slowing sales. Around seven million pairs were sold during 2025.
