Thousands of Meta's AI glasses no longer have functioning cameras after the company detected people tampering with the recording indicator lights.
Meta announced new efforts in recent weeks to crack down on people who drill out or cover up the tiny lights on their Meta glasses, which can make it easier to surreptitiously record people.
On Tuesday, Meta confirmed it's already shut down the cameras on thousands of devices following a software update intended to combat bad actors. The company said the enforcement action impacted the newest update affected less than one tenth of a percent of all Meta AI glasses sold. Semafor first reported the news.
Meta has not released information on how many total devices have been sold since they were launched in 2021, but 7 million were sold in 2025 alone (at the .1% number, that would account for 7,000 pairs of glasses that were physically tampered with).
Meta glasses have gained a somewhat fraught reputation lately, with some people referring to them as "pervert glasses." Business Insider has previously reported on Instagram's bumpy attempts to remove harassing content filmed on Meta glasses in public spaces. The glasses have always had an indicator light to show when they're recording, but people have found ways to hide or disable the light.
The company is responding to that criticism with several new lines of defense, including a new PR blitz.
On Monday, Meta's CTO, Andrew Bosworth, said in an Instagram ask-me-anything story post that the glasses are "the most privacy-forward camera" for consumers.
"You haven't had a camera that put a light on when it took a photo or video of somebody since you had like a VHS tape recorder in the 90s," he said, referencing the light that flashes when the glasses are recording. "Your phone doesn't have that, and it's the most commonly held camera on earth."
The company also put up billboards in Los Angeles, saying the eyewear is "designed for everyone" and "not just the people wearing them."
I don't think these billboards are going to change anything about the perception that people have about #Meta #smartglasses . Maybe the only effect they may have is educate some people about the purpose of the privacy led. pic.twitter.com/9OmG5m3uc9
— TonyVT SkarredGhost (@SkarredGhost) August 30, 2026
A recent update would stop the device from recording if the light was tampered with, but people found a way around it: it only detected a blockage at the start of filming, so they'd start recording, wait a few seconds, then cover it up.
The newest update closes that loophole. But not all people who had been trying to sneak around without the lights are going to have the devices permanently disabled.
If you drilled out your LED light, your camera function will never work again. However, you had been using the popular method of just covering it with a sticker; the camera will work again once you remove the sticker.
In a Thursday post on Threads , Meta's vice president of wearables, Alex Himel, wrote that only a "tiny minority of people" were tampering with the hardware, and said Meta will "keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured."
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