Norway's Digitalisation Minister Karianne Tung announced on August 25 that the country plans to regulate smart glasses more tightly and is considering a ban on facial recognition in public spaces.

Tung said in a statement that artificial intelligence is increasingly being paired with cameras and microphones built into glasses, earbuds and caps, adding that Norway "must avoid this equipment being used to monitor other people in public spaces."

She said she would appoint an expert group to advise the government on protecting consumers from the technology, and urged public and private organizations to draw up their own guidelines while the rules are being written. No timetable has been set.

The move comes as the market for AI-equipped wearables expands. Meta has sold millions of pairs of Ray-Ban smart glasses, and other manufacturers including Snap, Google and Samsung have announced or released their own AI eyewear, which would place any Norwegian rules among the first national rules aimed specifically at consumer smart glasses. As a European Economic Area member, Norway generally incorporates much EU single-market law, and the EU's AI Act — which took effect in 2024 and restricts certain uses of real-time biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces — is being phased in alongside national rules across the region.

Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, head of digital policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council, welcomed the move but said shops should stop selling smart glasses until the law is settled. Meta's facial recognition technology is built and awaiting rollout, he said, and banning the feature would not stop wearers from filming people covertly. He described the potential for abuse of the technology as "enormous."

The backlash against smart glasses

A BBC investigation in January found that women were being secretly filmed with Ray-Ban Meta glasses after being approached in public, with the footage then posted to TikTok. In February, Swedish newspapers reported that Nairobi-based contractors hired to train Meta's AI had reviewed recordings of people undressing, using bathrooms and having sex.

In April, the ACLU and 75 other organizations urged Meta to abandon facial recognition in the glasses, calling it a line society should not cross. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation in May, and in July Meta patched the devices after users found ways to defeat the light that signals recording.

Meta has since patented eyewear that recognizes faces and logs what wearers do. Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, meanwhile, sold out of its deliberately camera-free "Normal F***ing Sunglasses" in under a week.

Comic Con organizer Monopoly Events and the DEF CON security conference have both barred the glasses from their venues, and Police Scotland opened an investigation in July into a TikToker accused of filming people with a pair.

Norway would be among the first countries to legislate specifically for the devices. Tung's ministry has not said when the expert group will convene or when a bill might follow, leaving open the questions of how any ban would be enforced against devices already sold and whether other European countries would follow Norway's approach.