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?

Well apparently all the wannabe influencers think it’s very important that you see their daily life from their view.

Not technically criminal but so cringey that it should be.

I’d hope and assume the school would give you short shrift.

It’s essentially the same logic as saying someone carrying a smartphone must be recording children for nefarious purposes because their phone has a camera. Or that someone wearing sunglasses must be hiding something. If there’s actual evidence that someone is recording children, of course raise it. But reporting people simply because they own a particular type of glasses is frankly hysterical.

Covert recording equipment, around a school, potentialy secretly filming kids...

That just screams nonce.

Absolutely unacceptable, any arguement to try to justify them is as bad as wearing them. Creepy.

I can assure you, from personal experience, its not 'bullshit'. And yes, I know of more than one VI person who has gained a new lease of independence thanks to them.
Your experience with your particular visual impairment is not the same as others. You cannot speak for all conditions and degrees of sight loss.

@Minephotographercat Just to manage expectations, you will not get a response from the school until they return in September (if you are in England). Whilst it is a safeguarding issue, it would not pass the threshold of necessitating an out of hours response unlike some other saeguarding issues for which there is a separate protocol.

OP, this seems like a ludicrous overreach on your part. By your own admission there is nothing to suggest that anyone ‘in the school community’
has used these glasses inappropriately or otherwise at the school gates. So why on earth do
you feel it’s your place to pre-emptively ask the school to lay down rules?

Oh okay thanks. Wasn't sure if they had cameras. Not up with all the different gadgets.

@LatteLady thanks, that's what I expected.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that people respect your privacy when out and about. There's no reasonable reason for anyone to record or take photos of anyone else going about their daily business.

Yes, I know it's not illegal to record or take photos in public spaces

Not the same thing at all

@AppropriateAdult because, as many other posters including school governors have pointed out, safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. I've flagged a concern to the school, it's then up to them to decide whether it's warranted and if they want to take action or whether it's as you put it, a ludicrous overreach.

God I can’t imagine being married to a someone that wears these things. Loooooossssseeeerrrrsssss.

Yes bring it up to the school.

It’s essentially the same logic as saying someone carrying a smartphone must be recording children for nefarious purposes because their phone has a camera

Parents at my son's school play have literally been told off by the school for taking photos on their phone which included other people's kids so its exactly the same thing 🙄

Pervy losers.

So what makes you think some Dad's are using them at school then?

Exactly - it would be like someone recording every interaction on their phone.

Gross 🤮

I did say that there are people who have benefited from them, but there is literally nothing that you can do on the glasses that you can’t do on your phone other than that they can be used hands-free. Added to which the fact that the metta AI app is now so volatile that you practically have to factory reset the glasses every five minutes has led to a huge number of people with a VI ditching them entirely because they’re just not reliable any more.

There is an almost cult-like following of them in the VI community to the extent that anyone who has criticised them in the past has been shot down in flames for daring to suggest they’re anything other than the second coming.

There can and should be middle ground on all counts IMO.

To suggest that anyone who owns a pair of metta glasses is a nonse or a creep is vile. Plenty of people film with their phones all the time, to be able to take video and pictures is convenient if you do it with a pair of glasses, and they do serve a purpose purely as a pair of ray-bans, just because someone wears them doesn’t mean they’re filming with them, they may use them later and purely have them on at the gates because they’re sunglasses, for now.

ETA (because my screen lost the bloody focus and wouldn’t let me type more). Equally it can be acknowledged that there are people who benefit from them as something other than a media device but who need to accept that in some areas they just won’t be allowed. Such as Wetherspoons who have already banned them, or that it’s not e.g. ok to ask for descriptions of people around places like swimming pools or cassino’s etc.

FWIw I own a pair on the basis I was under the impression that certain apps would be made available on them and weren’t. I’ve worn them out purely as a pair of ray-bans because I do wear sunglasses and they were to hand,

But I’m actually looking to sell them as I never ever use them as a visual aid and could do with the cash frankly.

Op is making it up to stir, school has been out for weeks, so how she is seeing all these men with them at the school gate is weird.

Please do. It's a horrible invention, and I don't understand how can they be legal...

No they haven't. Again, there are forums dedicated to bypassing those features.

Scottish schools are back.

Report it, fucking creepy men. So unnecessary and only a loser wouldn’t realise why they would be making other parents and children feel unsafe

Lots of schools are back - not everyone goes to school in England FFS

See I’m sure it was in some training I was doing where a vulnerable child was on a school trip, despite training and everything given to all the staff and parents helping, the father still managed to find his daughter. It was because someone had MetaGlasses on and filmed themselves and their friend on the same trip. If I remember correctly, the father showed up at the school, there was a lot of chaos and mum had to move again.
I think purely for the safety of children they should be banned around schools/school children.

Still dont believe Op