AIBRIEF
Granted the same month reports emerged of Nairobi contractors reviewing sensitive recordings and a $2 sticker bypass defeated the LED indicator.
Meta was granted a US patent last week for a hardware kill switch that can physically cut power to the cameras and sensors on its Ray-Ban smart glasses, a system described in the USPTO filing as a "secure hardware-enforced sensor privacy system" with a "mute or lock" control.
The patent, USPTO publication 20260244794, was filed on February 6, 2026. Its drawings resemble the current Ray-Ban Meta glasses rather than the more abstract "augmented reality devices" named in the text, and analysts at Patentlyze read it as a hardware-level response to a problem Meta's software has not solved.
That problem is the front-facing LED that signals when the camera is recording. Engadget demonstrated that a $2 sticker placed over the LED defeats the indicator, and Meta's tamper-detection software has continued to be circumvented.
The patent landed roughly three weeks after a joint Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten investigation revealed Nairobi-based contractors reviewing intimate and sensitive footage captured by the glasses, the reporting that earned the product the street nickname "pervert glasses" and that some owners are reportedly choosing to leave the device at home rather than wear it in public.
A granted patent is not a shipping product. Meta did not respond to Futurism's request to confirm whether the switch is destined for the current Ray-Ban line or a future one. The gap between a switch on a patent page and a switch on a face is the open question.