U.S. police agencies warn of security risks from Meta smart glasses in detention facilities

Police forces across the U.S. are warning each other that Meta's camera-equipped glasses are being used to record inside jails and police facilities, according to a dozen previously unreported memos obtained under freedom of information and reported by the Guardian.

The New York Police Department's counterterrorism bureau, which works with the FBI, circulated the first of them in January, describing Ray-Ban Meta glasses as a "security and counterintelligence" threat and telling officers to inspect all eyewear allowed into inmate cells. Covert recording inside a facility could expose "cell layouts, camera placements, or officer patrol/site protection routines," it warned.

It cited two videos. One, posted to TikTok in July 2025, showed the inside of a South Carolina detention center then under federal investigation over unsafe conditions, taking in cells, washing and eating facilities and detainees apparently unaware they were being filmed. "Everyone here is trying to figure out what's going on with my glasses, why my light is blinking," the wearer said. "People don't know about Meta glasses."

Cameras pointed the other way

The documents were obtained by Property of the People, a transparency non-profit whose executive director, Ryan Shapiro, sees the objection as self-serving. "These agencies surveil the public incessantly, but the moment we can watch them back, it's deemed a security threat," he told the Guardian. "When only the government is allowed to hold the camera, that's not security. It's impunity."

Similar memos have come from the Department of Homeland Security's joint counterterrorism assessment team and from fusion centers in New York, Maine, Virginia, Tennessee and San Diego. Maine's, circulated in June, noted that some glasses "can leverage AI software including facial recognition," which it said could lead to the doxing of officers.

Federal agencies have started policing their own. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told staff in August that smart glasses count as body-worn cameras and cannot be worn in the federal workspace, because they could "unintentionally capture, record or transmit sensitive information."

Meta told the newspaper that the glasses "are designed to be noticed," pointing to the light that blinks while they record. That light is the only thing distinguishing them from ordinary Ray-Bans, and the South Carolina video suggests it does not always do the job.