Dutch eyewear retailer Hans Anders halts sales of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses

Dutch eyewear retailer Hans Anders has suspended the sale of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses across its locations in the Netherlands and Belgium. The company stated that the decision was prompted by ongoing public and political debates regarding the use of the technology and the conditions under which such devices should be operated.

This move marks one of the first instances of a major retail chain halting sales of the product due to privacy concerns. The decision follows a recent warning from the Dutch privacy regulator, the AP, which cautioned that videos captured by smart glasses featuring identifiable individuals generally cannot be shared or published without legal justification.

The backlash in the Netherlands reflects a wider international trend of concern regarding wearable cameras. In the United Kingdom, the pub chain Wetherspoon has implemented restrictions on the use of the glasses within its establishments, citing the potential for covert recording. Furthermore, Meta and its partner Luxottica are currently facing a lawsuit in the United States, which alleges that videos recorded by the glasses were accessed by human annotators without the consent or knowledge of the individuals being filmed.

In response to these concerns, a spokesperson for Meta emphasized that the company continues to develop the product with built-in privacy safeguards. The company noted that every pair of glasses equipped with a camera features a prominent light on the front that blinks whenever a photo or video is being recorded. According to Meta, this indicator light cannot be deactivated, and the camera system is designed to be disabled if the lens is covered or tampered with.