Norway weighs a national ban on facial-recognition features in smart glasses

Norway is preparing its first national rules for smart glasses, with a ban on facial-recognition features in public places on the table. Digitalisation Minister Karianne Tung said the rules will be drawn up by a new expert group and applied to devices that can record and identify people on a sidewalk (BGNES).

Tung cast the move as a guardrail for emerging technology, not a response to any single product. "We want to prevent the equipment from being used to monitor other people in public places," she said, and called on public agencies and private companies to write their own rules until legislation arrives.

Finn Myrstad, head of digital policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council, welcomed the move but warned a facial-recognition ban would not solve the underlying capture problem. "The potential for abuse is enormous," he said, because users can still record bystanders covertly. The Council has separately asked retailers to stop selling the devices until the legal framework is clarified.

Myrstad added that Meta has already developed facial-recognition technology that could be integrated into its smart glasses, though the source material does not confirm a shipping timeline. Norway's data-protection regulator has separately told MLex that smart glasses need their own regulatory category, distinct from phones and CCTV (MLex).

The expert group's composition, draft timeline, and parallel moves in other EU governments remain unspecified.