PARIS — Paris prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into suspected sexual harassment involving smart glasses, while France's data protection authority has received complaints from businesses, as governments worldwide grapple with the social impact of the fast-spreading devices.

Several smart glasses are now on sale, but those from US tech giant Meta, developed in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica, lead the market with roughly 76% of global share.

Meta's AI-enabled glasses, fitted with a small embedded camera that allows the wearer to record discreetly, have become a global hit, selling 7 million units last year. Essilor's latest sales figures point to "exponential growth" in 2026. The devices' shift from novelty to mass-market product is what has turned them into a regulatory flashpoint: worn on streets, in workplaces and in public venues, they multiply the settings in which the people nearby may be recorded without realizing it.

That success has triggered growing international scrutiny from prosecutors, regulators, rights groups and companies over issues including sexual harassment, corporate wrongdoing and illicit surveillance. Some UK cinemas have banned smart glasses, and a German consumer advocacy group has filed a criminal complaint against Meta and other companies involved in selling the devices in Germany, citing privacy laws.

The Paris prosecutor's office told Reuters it had recently opened at least one criminal probe after sexual harassment complaints linked to a social media trend of using smart glasses to film women on the street without their consent and posting the videos online. Prosecutors did not specify the brand of devices used.

The office declined to give further details but said its cybercrime unit tested the devices two weeks ago to gain a better understanding of the potential crimes smart glasses could be used to commit.

A Meta spokesperson said the company had "built privacy into our AI glasses from the ground up," adding that "we will keep strengthening our protections as our glasses become even more capable." EssilorLuxottica declined to comment.

Workplace complaints and a potential first ban

CNIL, France's data protection authority, said it had received fewer than 10 complaints about smart glasses being used in the workplace and did not disclose which brands were involved. It added that it was increasingly being contacted by businesses asking whether they could ban the devices at work.

Australia said on Thursday it is considering barring camera-equipped smart glasses in government workplaces over privacy and security concerns, in what it described as potentially the first ban of its kind. Alongside the open-ended Paris investigation, the Australian deliberation is one of the most concrete near-term markers of how far authorities are prepared to go.

Smart glasses pose "real challenges" in informing people that they are being filmed and obtaining consent where needed, said Nacera Bekhat, CNIL's head of economic affairs.

Legal framework and enforcement gaps

AI-enabled wearable devices fall under the European Union's AI Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which set rules on how people's personal data can be used.

French law also provides privacy protections — including penalties of up to one year in prison or a €45,000 ($51,700) fine — for recording the image of a person in a private place without their consent. But enforcement can be difficult, particularly when content is rapidly disseminated online, CNIL and other legal sources said. The actions taken so far — cinema bans in the UK, a criminal complaint in Germany, workplace guidance requests to CNIL and a possible Australian ban — amount, for now, to a fragmented, jurisdiction-jurisdiction response.

A small light in the devices' frames indicates when filming is taking place, but rights groups said this shifts the responsibility for avoiding being filmed onto the individual.

"Seeing a light come on doesn't mean that you consent to being filmed, nor to have your image distributed to thousands of people afterwards," said Ines Legendre, legal expert at internet safety organization e-Enfance.

Women are the primary target of abuse carried out with smart glasses, rights groups say. Ines Girard, who runs projects on technology-facilitated gender-based violence at feminist organization Hubertine Auclert, said the tech industry should do more to prevent abuse.

"We can't respond to a surveillance technology by telling the people being surveilled that they should be more vigilant," she said. "This places an additional burden on these individuals, particularly women, gender minorities and people already exposed to violence, online abuse and scrutiny in public spaces."

($1 = 0.8704 euros)

— Reuters

Source: BusinessWorld