It’s murder on the dance floor — at least for “smart” glasses.
After a summer of high-tech launches from Ray-Ban and Oakley, some of New York’s coolest clubs have put their foot, and their computerized spectacles, down.
The new rule: If you wear gawker goggles from Meta or Snap — the kind that could record and broadcast fellow party kids online without their knowledge —you risk trading a night under the blacklights for a lifetime on a blacklist.
Talk of bans recently hit the international stage on October 5, when Norway called for a temporary moratorium on the inspector gadgets in gyms, doctors’ offices and other private spaces, including party venues, across the entire nation.
“We do not want a society where people are concerned about hidden audio recordings, photography and filming in places and situations where they are used to being without being monitored,” declared the country’s Minister of Digitalization and Public Administration Torgeir Micaelsen in a state press release.
In July, New York became the first U.S. state to prohibit the surveillance specs in “state, county, town and village courts.”
Now, private venues across NYC and elsewhere are joining the privacy party.
Ultra-exclusive Queens nightclub Basement — known for barring revelers who fail their mysterious “vibe check” — announced on Instagram last month that anyone wearing or bringing smart glasses into the venue “will be asked to leave and may be permanently banned.”
In June, the Cocktail Bed Stuy bar in Brooklyn introduced a similar policy after Meta proposed introducing facial recognition technology into its glasses — a plan the tech conglomerate, which owns Facebook and Instagram — walked back after a massive outcry on its own social media platforms.
An underground party promoter in Brooklyn named James told The Post that shindigs are closed to digital looky-loos.
He instituted the policy at his floating soirees, which crop up at such hotspots as Honey’s, after seeing someone sport the specs at Nowadays, a rave cave on the edge of Bushwick. (Nowadays has since imposed a similar ban against smart glasses.)
“I just felt immediately uncomfortable and it immediately killed my vibe on the dance floor,” said James, who requested anonymity because of his sometimes-illegal gig.
He said that getting filmed on someone’s smartphone while you’re just trying to dance is bad — but it’s 10x worse with smart glasses, which might look like an innocent visual aid, but can secretly start filming you with the press of a tiny button.
“I think the biggest problem with the glasses is that they’re very covert,” he lamented. “They’re like pervert glasses, [especially] if you don’t want to be observed and recorded when you’re partying.”
Unfortunately, James isn’t speaking in hypotheticals.
This past spring, a group of online creeps went viral after wearing smart glasses while bothering women, then broadcasting their icky actions on Instagram. (Platform chief Adam Mosseri publicly banned that behavior in July.)
James told The Post that such behavior is particularly frowned on in the New York club scene, as it’s the one place that city kids “can really let loose” without stigma or judgment.
“This is the one time in the week where you’re not being surveilled,” he explained. “You’re being surveilled at your job, on the street, everything.”
The bans are spreading across North America.
Seattle’s pioneering 5 Points Cafe, which banned Google Glass smart specs in 2013, reupped the policy for the digital Ray-Ban age. “We serve privacy, not side-eye surveillance,” they declared on Instagram.
Toronto DJ Takin Nateghi instituted a similar policy at his nightlife den, Wiggle Room, in September. The beatmaster even equipped his staffers with an app that can detect spyware on the dance floor.
An overreaction? Nateghi says no way.
“At Wiggle Room, we have a lot of professionals like lawyers, doctors and off-duty police officers,” he told The Post. “They don’t want their video to be out on social media of them having a good time or having a few drinks.”
Even if they’re behaving badly with a mistress or associate?
“Who knows?” shrugged Nateghi, noting that as long as nothing harmful or abusive is happening, “It’s none of our business.”
Even Meta has recently taken steps to curb the device’s privacy-violating potential, including a new software “kill switch” that stops the glasses from recording the moment the indicator light is covered. Previously, it only prevented the camera from rolling when the device was already obscured, allowing users to press play and then cover it.
Anti-surveillance experts say that’s not enough.
“No single kill switch will be sufficient,” AI specialist Dr. Roman Yampolskiy told the Post. A computer science professor at the University of Louisville, Yampolskiy said to really curb privacy pirates, companies like Meta need to install tamper-resistant recording lights, automatic face blurring and “meaningful penalties for abuse.”
Without these, he said, “anonymity in public could disappear” — and stalking, blackmail and automated social profiling could become not just easy, but normal.
Why can’t we just make smart glasses illegal at clubs?
Gautam Hans, a law professor at Cornell University who specializes in privacy, civil liberties and emerging tech, said that “social practices” will be more effective, at least in the short term.
Pushing a “no smart glasses” law through Congress, he said, could get messy and protracted. But letting nightclubs ban stylish spyware is nearly impossible to stop, and has the same effect.
Keyboard warriors insist they’ll keep sporting the smart glasses and take their chances at the elite dancehalls.
“I’m still wearing them,” declared one Reddit rebel. “They can ban me, then I can go to the next establishment. F–k em!”
“Stop caring what other people think,” said another. “I don’t wear mine to creep on people so I’m going to continue to wear them.”
Others raised a thornier issue: What happens when the tech specs double as prescription glasses?
Nateghi, for one, noted that Wiggle Room accommodates customers who need the lenses to see, provided they cover or remove their smart specs’ recording capabilities.
And, despite the ban, he recognizes that the technology is here to stay. The DJ, who wears prescription glasses himself, even sees the appeal.
“If I’m going to have my prescription glasses and be able to record something quickly, why not?” he said. “I think it’s a technology that will get adopted into everyday living. It’s just that we have to figure out how to do it safely.”
Bouncers and promoters like James are less enthused, noting that if Big Brother wants to watch you, it shouldn’t be at an underground rave.
“It’s just very creepy.”
