New York is set to become the first US state to bar smart glasses from every one of its courthouses, closing a privacy loophole that recording-enabled eyewear had quietly opened up. Starting July 20, any glasses or headwear fitted with cameras, microphones or other recording tech will be turned away at the door of every Unified Court System facility, according to a memo from the Office of Court Administration. The rule is sweeping in scope, covering more than 1,240 state, county, city, town and village courts across New York.The memo, first reported by Syracuse. com, lays out exactly what is and isn’t permitted. Here’s the full breakdown.
New York smart glasses ban: The full list of rules explained
The ban covers a lot more than the obvious Ray-Ban Meta-style eyewear. Here’s what the memo spells out:
- All recording eyewear and headwear is banned. Any glasses or headgear containing a camera, microphone or other recording technology is barred from entering court facilities.
- Prescription glasses aren’t exempt. If your prescription lenses come with recording capability built in, they fall under the ban too. There’s no medical-need workaround.
- The rule applies to everyone. This isn’t just for the public. Court staff and attorneys have to follow it as well, with no exceptions for people who work in the building.
- You surrender them at the door. Anyone who shows up wearing smart glasses will have to hand them over to uniformed court officers, who keep them for safekeeping until the person leaves.
- It covers every court in the state. The ban applies across all 1,240-plus state, county, city, town and village courts under the Unified Court System, per Syracuse. com.
- The signs are already going up. In Syracuse, notices announcing the ban appeared last week outside the Honorable James C. Torney III Criminal Courthouse.
Why New York is banning smart glasses: The privacy loophole courts want closed
The reasoning is spelled out plainly in the memo: the goal is to stop people from secretly recording proceedings, which violates New York State Civil Rights Law and existing court rules. Recording inside courtrooms has long been off-limits, but smart glasses made it far easier to do it without anyone noticing.New York isn’t acting alone, but it is going further than anyone else. Court systems in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Hawaii have brought in similar restrictions, though New York’s appears to be the first to explicitly cover an entire state’s court network. Federal courts, which already ban recording in courtrooms, have not announced a smart glasses policy of their own.The move lands amid growing public unease about devices like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which critics say are too easy to use for covert recording. Judges have already started pushing back. Earlier this year, two people wearing smart glasses in a Los Angeles courtroom were reprimanded during a case involving Meta, a sign of how quickly the tech has collided with the rules of the room.
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