This morning, Android Headlines announced that Samsung plans to release new smart glasses later this year. These new glasses would join the Android XR glasses, the recently-announced luxury Google glasses, and Meta’s already available line of smart glasses. While people are already aware of the privacy problems this new type of wearable technology creates, not many are considering the risk of criminal charges that may come with using smart glasses.
In this day and age, most people assume that they are free to record and share whatever they are able to see and hear when they are out and about. The law in Pennsylvania puts limits on this. In Pennsylvania, people are not allowed to record another person without their permission if they are in a place where there’s a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This particular crime was created by the Wiretap Act. What that means is that, while you can generally record a person if they are out in public, you can’t do it without permission if they are somewhere private.
Places that are considered private include homes, changing rooms, restrooms, and other places where a business has posted a sign saying that recording isn’t permitted.
Photo by cavebear42, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Other more obvious ways that a person can commit a crime with smart glasses include recording intimate encounters without permission and recording a person’s intimate parts (whether they are covered or not) when they don’t intend for those parts of their bodies to be visible to the public.
Key Takeaways:
- More smart glasses are being released by tech companies
- You can’t record someone in a private place without their permission
- Pennsylvania has strict laws that make it illegal to record intimate actions without permission
- Pennsylvania also makes it illegal to record a person’s clothed or unclothed private parts if they didn’t intend to display those parts publicly.
