Meta glasses at the school gate

[Minephotographercat]

I know several Dads at our primary school own, and are big advocates of the meta glasses that can record people without them realising.

WIBU to email the school (without naming names) with my concerns that our children might be being recorded at the school gate?

Yes. This is potentially a safeguarding issue.

YANBU

So many people are using them to record women and children it’s disgusting.

Also I just find the whole idea of needing technology attached to your face so cringey!
Like can you not even go for a walk without the safety blanket of technology.

Are the glasses creepy? Yes.

But all sorts of creepy things exist. You can conceal cameras in bags, baseball caps, shirt buttons. And those men won't be talking openly about it.

The school can't send out messages just because someone might potentially do something creepy but there is no evidence that they are. What would the message says "Apropos of nothing, don't be a creep and record children" . Would they need to send it out annually? Weekly?

The glasses are horrible but it also isn't the schools job to try and fix all of society's problems by sending out emails. So don't try and add this burden to the teachers' responsibilities.

They are life changing for those with visual impairment.

The school will know they're in use in the community. Our LA has included an appropriate use suggested paragraph in their model policy since 2025.

Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done outside the school gate, bar a letter from school asking them not to be used and parent power.

Inside the school gate, it's hard enough to stop parents using their phones to film their child. We're supposed to be getting the children safely into/out of the building rather than have constant eyes on for filming/meta glasses.

I don't mean to sound defeatist, but the tech moves at too fast a pace to keep up with.

If you are partially sighted, no you can't 'go for a walk without the blanket of technology'. Not everyone is using these glasses for the novelty. For others they have given back a glimmer of independence.

Average dad at the school gate ain't doing all that

Which a) you can’t always see if it’s on or not if in direct sunlight and b) there are multiple guides to block/dim/turn off online.

Nope, these are the choice of the pervert or at a push exam cheat. There’s a tiny percentage of the population with a reasonable case for buying them. Those people should understand how socially unacceptable they are to wear out and about normally, and no one should be so dim to think they are ok to wear in the school run.

public shame should be used to destroy these as a desirable item.

OP send the email to school and comment about it being unacceptable to wear at school to the group chats. Make these dads feel that everyone else is looking at them and judging them to be a pervert. Don’t let the actual perverts use the techie geeks as a shield to hide behind.

I would have no problem reporting this and asking for it to stop. I do not want anyone taking videos or pictures of my children without mine or their consent. There are also lots of at risk children in my DDs primary school.

The HT & other senior staff patrol the school gates at the high school, the HT hates smart technology so can absolutely see him pulling parents up on this if he saw it.

Oh come off it. They’re a perverts dream!

you do realise meta glasses can help blind people know whats infront of them or where they are walking or what coloured jumper they put on in the morning right?

Obviously if you are visually impaired that’s different.

It would be just as cringey walking around using a cane for the visually impaired but not being visually impaired.

There’s no need for people without these disabilities to use them and it’s cringey when they do because they’re obviously only using them because they need a crutch of technology.

If phones and other devices with the ability to record are banned within school grounds then yes, it would be reasonable to email the school and let them know some parents have these glasses (without naming names) and ask if they can add them to the list of banned devices.

There are far more surreotitious ways of filming, ie miniture cameras that can be hidden and probably a lot cheaper, if someone really wants to film someone without their knowing

Definitely tell the school. These glasses are horrible. I've seen online people now get the recording light removed and painted over. Its not nice for anyone to he filmed without knowledge or consent, let alone little ones.

It is a safe guarding issue so the school need to know.
There are very vulnerable children who could potentially be in danger, families who could be and staff too.

Safe guarding is everyone’s responsibility and all little bits of information can add up.
All safe guarding training tells us this. All the reports after another poor child has been abused or worse tells us things like “if only there had been joined up thinking…”

There are, and if parents knew that people were using those at the school gates they would also flag those as an issue. That doesn't make pervert glasses a non-issue.

Grim. Definitely report it to the school so they can ban them at drop off and pick up. These dads are probably just ignorant dullards, but it’s a huge safeguarding risk.

Why is it usually men doing stupid stuff like this? Why record anything or anyone to start with? The next thing will be some boffin inventing meta glasses or phones that will undress anyone in the viewers line of sight.
So wrong on so many levels.

Meta literally already created it and embedded the 'Name Tag' tech into the glasses. They had to delete it due to the outcry. But it exists! We need to keep up the public resistance and revulsion as far as these glasses go, like what happened to the Google Glasses that users were shamed out of wearing a few years ago, or all the dystopian nightmares about this kind of tech will come true.

Why am I not surprised it's men who are a big fan of being able to film (women and children, who are the majority of people on the school run ime) like this all the time now ...

I've emailed the school noting my concern and asking whether they will consider issuing clear guidance to parents on the use of wearable recording devices on school grounds.

My DS who is a tech lover has non-Meta smart glasses. They don't have a camera. When I asked why he didnt go for the meta ones he said "because I don't want or need to film people and people will assume I am even if I'm not."
He also has a drone, but he doenst fly it over the school or playgrounds just in case. Even though people are as small as dots and completely unidentifiable on the footage.

Thanks for that article, @BeasKnee .

It includes the gem that when Meta were planning their facial recognition feature, NameTag, they wrote a document saying they would launch it “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns”.

They know.

Link to article again:
Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/aug/19/meta-glasses-privacy-surveillance

So is the visually impaired dad at the school gates - bearing in mind they may not use a cane - a creep?
No, he isnt.