The question of a Meta AI glasses ban is dividing tech event organisers across Europe and beyond, as legal action, regulatory scrutiny, and reports of covert recordings push the controversy well beyond online debate. More than 7 million pairs of the glasses sold in 2025 alone, according to figures cited in the industry, yet the device has attracted criticism serious enough to prompt a hacker convention, a major pub chain, and at least one private investor gathering to restrict or prohibit their use.
What the legal pressure looks like
The backlash has moved into courtrooms. Memeburn reports that a class-action lawsuit was filed against Meta on 4 March in San Francisco federal court. Separately, Law Commentary reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into the glasses in May, citing concerns about recordings, facial data, and the company’s privacy claims. Meta has said it designed its AI glasses with privacy and safety features built in from the start.
Then there is the question of what happens to footage after it is captured. The National Law Review reports that workers at Sama, a Kenya-based subcontractor, were reviewing video clips captured through Meta’s AI glasses as part of an AI training pipeline. That reviewed footage, the National Law Review reports, included bathroom visits, nudity, sexual activity, and other private moments inside users’ homes. It is the kind of detail that shifts the conversation from hypothetical harm to something considerably more concrete.
Critics have taken to calling the glasses “pervert glasses” or “stalkerware”. An activist group in London, Everyone Hates Elon, created a mock advertisement featuring the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wearing a pair. An online petition circulating across the UK and Ireland has gathered thousands of signatures calling for a ban. UK cinemas are reportedly considering restrictions amid piracy concerns, according to the industry’s trade body. Wetherspoons has implemented an effective ban by not allowing people to record with the glasses in its pubs.
Meta AI glasses ban: where tech events stand
Defcon, the annual hacker convention in Las Vegas, has already banned the glasses. Madeline Lawrence, cofounder of Belgian cybersecurity company Aikido Security, notes this was partly cultural: the cyber community leans toward online anonymity, she says, with handles instead of real names the norm. But she also points to security concerns around how the glasses capture and store data, and how hackable those systems are. Whether other tech events follow is another question, and Lawrence is not convinced they will. ‘These conferences exist to celebrate new technology,’ she says. ‘How can they do that while banning tech in its critical early days?’
TechBBQ in Copenhagen is letting attendees wear the glasses freely. Conference spokesman Keyvan Thomsen Bamdej puts the position plainly: ‘The issue isn’t the device, it’s the behaviour. You can just as easily covertly record someone using a smartphone.’ The conference’s code of conduct, which covers harassment and recording without consent, applies to every device. Bamdej also raises an accessibility argument: for many visually impaired individuals, he says, AI glasses are a game-changer, and a blanket ban risks being exclusionary.
HumanX, set to take place in Amsterdam in September, takes a similar line. Stefan Weitz, the event’s cofounder and CEO, compares a ban to ‘banning smartphones at a computer show in 2008’. He acknowledges ‘real questions about privacy and consent’ but argues that a tech conference is precisely the right place to work out those norms rather than sidestep them. His advice to attendees is to ‘read the room’.
Not everyone agrees. In Dublin, an invitation-only gathering called Rebase, organised by Eamon Leonard of pre-seed fund Baseline, will effectively ban the glasses this October. Leonard says invitees would have ‘a reasonable expectation of the kind of trust that comes with closed door sessions’, making any recording device inappropriate. Lachlan Chavasse, who runs Deep Tech London (also scheduled for October), floats a middle path: an explicit opt-in to ambient recording, similar to existing photography policies at events.
Hailey Eustace, founder and CEO of Commplicated, a London-based PR firm for early-stage deeptech companies, puts a sharper point on it: ‘It would be nice to see the tech community in general take more ownership of where we want technology to go. We don’t have to blindly accept every piece of tech as a positive.’ With Paxton’s investigation under way in Texas and a class action pending in California, the legal framing around the glasses is likely to develop before many of these October events even open their doors.
