UK Venues Ban Meta Smart Glasses En Masse

Several establishments across the U.K. are announcing bans on Meta smart glasses, citing concerns that the devices could be used to record customers and staff secretly.

Wetherspoons, a popular pub chain with over 800 venues, announced on Friday that it is imposing an outright ban on Meta glasses.

“The general code that applies in our pubs, and most pubs, is that you can’t film customers or employees without their permission,” says chief executive Tim Martin.

“Meta glasses seem to breach this code, and common sense, by enabling surreptitious surveillance, so our instinct is to say turn off the cameras. This is akin to our efforts to stop audible playing of videos in our pubs, which also invades people’s space.”

Wetherspoons says it has CCTV cameras inside its pubs for security reasons, but that data is strictly controlled by legislation.

Upmarket London restaurateur Jeremy King tells The Guardian that he is banning Meta glasses from his restaurants, which include Arlington, The Park, and Simpsons in the Strand.

“I would never knowingly allow any invasion of guest privacy other than with the eyes we were born with,” King says.

Soho House, an international private members’ club based in London, says that it will ask patrons to remove them; filming of any kind isn’t allowed at their venues.

Outside of drinking and dining, Monopoly Events, which runs Comic-Con in the U.K., says it is also banning Meta glasses after guests informed the company they are reluctant to attend another event after they were filmed without permission. From now on, any guest found to be wearing recording devices will be asked to leave.

Meanwhile, ATG Theatres, which operates theatres across London as well as ones in Bristol and Edinburgh, has also confirmed that the glasses are now banned and anyone caught wearing them will be asked to remove them.

It comes after a ferry operator in Scotland temporarily paused its operations after a TikToker secretly filmed crew members during a tour around Loch Seaforth.

Today, researchers from the University of Sydney said they have analyzed 350 publicly available Instagram videos from around the world from 2023 to 2026 that show male “pick-up artists” approaching women in public spaces.

Around 60 percent of the covert point-of-view videos analyzed showed behavior classified as potential harassment. Many women showed discomfort or refusal, yet filming and interaction often continued.

In 43 percent of videos, individuals were further exposed to derogatory commentary, some being identified and doxxed.

---

Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.