Summary

  • The EDPB says the person wearing smart glasses cannot carry every transparency obligation: manufacturers and linked app or service providers acting as controllers retain their own duties.
  • Its 13 October statement is preliminary guidance. Suggested recording signals are examples, not a new binding technical standard.

A person who sees a phone raised can often tell that a camera may be recording. With smart glasses, that cue can disappear into an ordinary frame. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has made that visibility problem central to its first statement on the devices, adopted on 13 October 2026.

The statement does not assign every user the same legal role. It says a wearer may be a controller when posting images to a public social-media account or using glasses for official, professional or political activity. By contrast, recording family or friends, or using a device for personal translation in a private setting, may be a purely personal activity covered by the GDPR’s household exemption. Other laws can still apply.

That distinction does not move a provider’s obligations onto the wearer. The EDPB says producers and providers of linked applications or services, when acting as data controllers, cannot transfer their own duties to users. They remain responsible for complying with data-protection law and for ensuring that further processing is compatible with the purpose for which data were collected. A private-use exception for a person wearing the glasses therefore does not itself settle the provider’s separate role.

For people nearby, the problem is not just whether a lens is active. Bystanders may not know that information about them is being processed, who is doing it or why. The EDPB points to bright LEDs, audio signals, voice cues, privacy-friendly phone notifications and distinctive designs as possible ways to make recording obvious. It says warnings should be reliable, hard to ignore and kept up to date, and encourages industry standards and public awareness. These are preliminary recommendations, not a prescribed product specification.

The Board also published “The connected gaze,” a qualitative expert report on the same date. The EDPB says it was prepared by an external contractor and that its views do not necessarily reflect the Board’s official position. That report should not be treated as the statement itself.

The practical test now is whether a person can recognize recording and understand which organization controls the processing and for what purpose. The EDPB’s announcement describes the guidance as preliminary; its Statement 1/2026 page identifies the adopted text. Neither sets a deadline for a new technical standard.