California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have penalized Californians for using smart glasses to record people without their permission in changing rooms, doctor\u2019s offices and other spaces people generally consider private.<\/p>\n
The legislation also would have required companies making smart glasses or other wearable devices, starting in 2028, to include a light or some other feature that indicates that the person is video or audio recording. It would have banned the sale of technology designed to help people conceal a recording light or sound on a smart device.<\/p>\n
Newsom wrote in a letter explaining his decision that the bill’s definition of a wearable recording device was too broad. He noted that the state already bars people from recording someone without their consent in spaces generally considered private.<\/p>\n
Meta Ray-Bans, smart glasses that were rolled out in 2021, have especially grown in popularity, with more than 7 million of the AI-powered devices being sold last year. State Sen. Eloise G\u00f3mez Reyes, who wrote the bill, said it would’ve helped the state respond to the technology\u2019s rapid growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever we can do to protect an individual\u2019s right to privacy, we have to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The bill would have been the first of its kind in the nation and built upon the state\u2019s extensive privacy protections. California is one of about a dozen states that already requires both parties\u2019 consent before a conversation can be recorded via audio or video. <\/p>\n
Reyes\u2019 proposal was designed to clarify that it applied to smart glasses and make it easier for someone to tell when those devices are recording. Any person who violated the bill by secretly recording someone would have faced prison time or fines of up to $1,500. A company that made devices that didn’t comply with the bill would’ve faced fines up to $2,500.<\/p>\n
But TechNet, a group of executives from companies including Meta, Google and Amazon, said the legislation, known as SB 1130, would have been unfair to businesses and customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia already has extensive laws governing unlawful recording, and as currently written, SB 1130 is not the right approach to addressing these concerns,\u201d TechNet Executive Director Robert Boykin said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Meta touted the benefits of its smart glasses in response to Newsom’s veto, including an initiative providing the devices to blinded veterans to help them read documents and identify objects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still in the early days of building this technology and we\u2019re committed to continuing prioritizing privacy as we build,\u201d a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
About a dozen states, including California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, require someone who wants to record a conversation to get the other person\u2019s permission. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to strengthen privacy laws for these wearable smart devices because it\u2019s not as obvious to tell when a person is using them to record compared to when someone is filming with their phone or a camera, said Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy for Consumer Reports.<\/p>\n
In a letter to lawmakers earlier this year about the bill, Consumer Reports referenced a TikTok in which a woman recounted her experience getting a wax when she realized her technician was wearing smart glasses. The technician told the content creator, Aniessa Navarro, that the glasses weren\u2019t on, but the experience was still unnerving, she said in the TikTok. The Consumer Reports letter cited a separate event in which a woman said she was secretly filmed with smart glasses at a gym and harassed online after the video was uploaded to social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stories are enough to cause alarm, and we need to do something as soon as we can,\u201d Reyes said at the end of the legislative session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have penalized Californians for using smart glasses to record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,457],"class_list":["post-481824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gavin-newsom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}