Smart glasses are moving rapidly from novelty to widespread use. Devices that look like ordinary prescription eyewear can take photographs, record video and audio, livestream content, connect to cloud-based AI services, translate documents and conversations, and provide real-time answers about what the wearer sees. Because they are inconspicuous, the glasses can be used in many places without others even knowing, including in the office.
For businesses, this raises an important question: When and how should private smart glasses be restricted on company premises? In many workplaces, significant restrictions are justified. Smart glasses can create risks involving confidential information, trade secrets, employee and customer privacy, cybersecurity and workplace safety.
A blanket ban on this technology, however, may cause more problems than it solves as adoption becomes more widespread. Smart glasses can provide valuable assistance to employees who are visually impaired, and their use may constitute a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even aside from disability accommodation, employees in a range of roles can benefit from hands-free functionality, improving both safety and productivity. Nor is a bespoke “smart glasses” policy usually warranted.
Many employers benefit from a risk-based, technology-neutral use policy—one appropriately contextualized to the business yet flexible enough to anticipate new technological developments like this one. For example, employers updating their technology-related policies may wish to consider provisions that restrict recording-capable wearables in sensitive locations and situations, prohibit unauthorized recording and transmission of confidential information, establish rules for visitors, and provide a clear accommodation process. In crafting these policies, employers must be aware of existing and emerging laws governing workplace disability, workplace safety, personal data protection, wiretapping, records preservation, and artificial intelligence usage.
What Smart Glasses Can Record
Modern smart glasses combine multiple functions—depending on the model, they may contain cameras, microphones, speakers, Bluetooth and Internet connectivity, voice assistants and AI functionality. The risks therefore extend beyond photographs. A wearer may, without taking any action noticeable by others, record employees, customers and visitors; capture conversations, computer screens, documents and whiteboards; livestream audio or video; transmit material to a smartphone or cloud platform; or use AI to interpret, translate or summarize what the camera or microphone captures.
These capabilities are particularly problematic in environments containing trade secrets, customer information, health or financial data, source code, product-development materials, or privileged communications. Smart glasses can also create workplace-safety issues when notifications, calls, navigation instructions, or AI-generated responses distract an employee. And a recording indicator does not guarantee that nearby individuals will recognize that recording is occurring.
Unlike a smartphone held up in front of someone, smart glasses can look entirely ordinary. A recording indicator may exist, but a coworker or customer may not notice it—or may not know what it means.
What Does U.S. Law Say?
There is currently no comprehensive federal statute specifically regulating employees' use of smart glasses at work. Existing laws nevertheless provide employers with several reasons to impose restrictions.
- Wiretapping and eavesdropping laws
Audio recording carries particular risks. Subject to exceptions, federal and state laws generally prohibit recording an individual’s communications without consent. Federal law requires consent from only one party to the communication, but some states impose stricter requirements—including so-called “all-party” consent states like California. Employers operating across multiple states should not assume that a recording permissible in one location is permissible everywhere. If an employee using smart glasses to surreptitiously record meetings is deemed to be acting in the course of employment, the employer could face liability. This risk is heightened by the availability of statutory damages, and although violations are commonly the subject of civil litigation, they can also constitute criminal offenses.
The Illinois eavesdropping statute, 720 ILCS 5/14-1 et seq., provides a useful example. Illinois law generally requires consent from all parties to a private conversation, and the prohibited conduct is “surreptitious” use—potentially implied from the discreet nature of the glasses themselves if the wearer does not announce they are recording. Liability extends both to individuals who use eavesdropping devices and to businesses that knowingly employ someone who uses such a device in the course of employment. An employee using smart glasses to record a workplace conversation could therefore create legal exposure for the employer, even if the employee believed recording was permissible.
In light of the above, any policy covering the use of wearables should avoid relying on a single federal recording standard. Employees should be required to announce when they are recording and, where appropriate, impose stricter company rules for sensitive meetings and locations.
- Privacy laws
Smart glasses that transmit data to third-party services—including cloud-based AI platforms—may implicate comprehensive state privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and other state-specific legislation. Unlike other comprehensive privacy laws, the CCPA applies in the workplace context, and employers must therefore provide privacy notices to employees explaining how the employer collects their personal information. If smart glasses are used in the course of employment, that may include any audio and visual information collected by them. Employees may even have the right to request deletion of such information—difficult to administer on otherwise personal devices—and privacy principles implicating record retention and data minimization could also apply. The California legislature also recently adopted a bill, SB 1130, that would specifically address wearable recording devices such as smart glasses by restricting recording in places of business where the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy. The bill has passed both houses of the California legislature and was enrolled on 09/04/26 for review by Governor Newsom.
Other comprehensive US State privacy laws—like those in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, etc.—do not apply directly to the collection of employee information but could still apply to an employee’s use of smart glasses outside of the office or with visitors. Employers should consider whether such collection requires notice, consent, or other adoption of other compliance measures. As of September 4, 2026, the bill was adopted in both.
- Biometric information laws
Smart glasses can create a second privacy risk if their cameras or connected applications identify individuals or generate biometric information. A number of U.S. states prohibit collecting biometric information without notice and consent.
Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) poses particular risk because it provides a private right of action with statutory damages. BIPA generally requires written notice and a written release before a private entity collects, captures, or stores biometric identifiers or information, including certain facial geometry data.
- Labor and Employment Laws
Before imposing workplace limitations, employers must consider legal protections that those limitations could violate. For example, some employers faced with all these technologies might seek to simply ban workplace photography and recording outright—but such a ban might not hold up if it infringes on employees’ rights. Photos and recordings are one way for employees to exercise their rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects employees who act together concerning working conditions and other terms of employment.
Likewise, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations for qualified employees with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. The EEOC specifically recognizes assistive technology—including wearable technology, OCR, wayfinding tools, and other devices—as potential reasonable accommodations for employees with visual disabilities. (See EEOC, Visual Disabilities in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act (July 26, 2023)) Employers should consider whether and in what cases wearable technology may constitute a reasonable accommodation for a disabled employee.
Ongoing Debate in Europe Provides Useful Guidance
European law illustrates why smart glasses should not be treated simply as another form of personal electronics. Under the GDPR, recording identifiable individuals generally constitutes processing of personal data and requires a legal basis. The EU Court of Justice has treated video recording of identifiable persons as personal-data processing even before the GDPR took effect. In Ryneš (Case C-212/13), the CJEU addressed video surveillance extending beyond the operator's private sphere; the fact that premises are privately owned does not exempt surveillance from data-protection rules. Even on non-public business premises, video surveillance requires a legal basis and must satisfy necessity, proportionality, transparency, and data-minimization requirements. National law also applies. In Germany, for instance, Section 8(1) of the Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG) prohibits telecommunications equipment disguised as ordinary objects that is suitable for secretly recording another person's image or non-public words. The statutory test focuses, among other things, on whether the recording function is clearly recognizable during normal use. There is no higher-court case law on smart glasses yet, though some German data-protection authorities have spoken out against their use. The current German debate over camera-equipped smart glasses shows that the issue is far from settled.
A Smart “Smart Glasses” Approach
For many employers, the best policy is neither “anything goes” nor an unconditional company-wide ban. Instead, the employer should—in its handbook or relevant policies—clarify how, where, and when such technology is prohibited. Smart glasses could, for example, be prohibited in confidential meetings, laboratories, production areas, customer-facing situations, areas containing sensitive employee or customer information, and locations where trade secrets or highly confidential business information are routinely exposed. As smart glasses start to replace regular prescription frames, policies might be better framed as requiring employees to disable certain features in the workplace—employers are well served to keep up with the technology itself and adjust its practices accordingly.
The appropriate level of restriction depends on the business and workplace, and a broader prohibition may be necessary in some settings. New York's state court system, for example, recently prohibited smart glasses and similar wearable technology capable of recording audio or video, while retaining an accommodation mechanism for individuals with disabilities. (See N.Y. Office of Court Administration, Court Policy on Prohibition Against Smart Glasses (July 1, 2026))
Facility rules should establish whether visitors may enter with recording-capable devices and whether recording is prohibited in particular areas. Appropriate signage may be useful, but signage should not be regarded as the sole protection. Employees should know whom to contact if a visitor appears to be recording, but should not be expected to determine the technical capabilities of a particular pair of glasses.
What Should the Employer's Policy Cover?
The policy should be drafted broadly enough to remain useful as the technology evolves. Rather than regulating a particular product, it should cover personal or employer-provided wearable technology capable of recording, transmitting, analyzing or otherwise processing audio, video or other information.
In short, employers can review and update relevant policies, calling out “smart glasses” and other wearable technology specifically where applicable, to set employee expectations and avoid security breaches. Relevant policies include confidentiality, information-security, AI-use, disability accommodations, recording, and acceptable-use policies. Policies can address where such devices may be used, when recording functions must be disabled, what information may not be captured or transmitted, and the consequences of violations. Even where permitted, businesses may wish to remind employees and visitors that using a personal device does not override existing confidentiality obligations. Likewise, if the company itself wants to deploy smart glasses, it should conduct a separate legal and privacy assessment rather than simply applying its BYOD policy.
Conclusion
Smart glasses create a new version of an old workplace problem: employees bringing personal technology into an environment containing information and people who need protection. The fact that they look like ordinary eyewear makes the problem harder. For most employers, the appropriate response is a clear, technology-neutral policy that prohibits or restricts recording-capable wearables in sensitive areas and during sensitive activities, while allowing appropriate exceptions and accommodations. The NLRA and ADA should be considered before implementing broad restrictions. House rules for visitors are only useful if they are properly enforced and front-desk and security staff are properly trained. The time to establish those rules is before the first customer discovers that an employee's or visitor’s glasses were recording a meeting—or taking pictures on the premises.
