Smart Glasses at Work

Smart Glasses at Work—Protect Your Business Without Violating Employee Rights

Smart glasses have become a new workplace reality. Unlike cell phones that can be seen in a hand, smart glasses can capture audio, photos, and video hands-free and may do so in ways that are difficult for others to detect. This changes the risk profile for employers that already have “no recording,” “no camera,” or “no smart devices” policies in place. The challenge is balancing legitimate business needs, such as confidentiality, safety, data security, and productivity, against employees' rights.

Why Smart Glasses Are Different Than Other Smart Devices

Many workplaces already regulate the use of recording devices, cell phones, smart watches, earbuds, and personal laptops. Smart glasses raise similar issues, but with a few twists that can make existing policies incomplete or outdated:

• Smart glasses can record or stream with minimal hand movement and may not be obvious to others.
• Voice commands, sometimes used inadvertently, can capture sensitive information.
• Data from smart glasses may be handed over to third parties, sometimes without the wearer's knowledge.

Workplace Risks

Smart glasses can improve accessibility and efficiency (e.g., hands-free instructions, real-time translation, etc.). But employers should also plan for potential risks, like the following:

• Confidentiality and Trade Secrets: Recordings or live-streaming of confidential information like customer lists, pricing, trade secrets, product schematics, programming code, and/or notes from internal strategy meetings can quickly become shareable.
• Privacy and Consent: Recording laws vary by location, and workplace recordings can impact employee and customer privacy expectations and industry rules (e.g., healthcare). Even when recording is legal, it may still violate company policy.
• Data Security: If glasses sync to personal phones, cloud storage, or third-party services, employers lose control over where data is stored, how long it is retained, and who can access it.
• Workplace Relations: Secret recordings can undermine investigations and create opportunities for claims that the employer allowed privacy policy violations.
• Safety: In safety-sensitive roles, smart glasses can create visual distractions, reduce awareness, and interfere with safety equipment.

Policy Framework

Employers often gravitate to the “no smart devices” rule. But smart glasses blur the lines between eyewear, which is sometimes needed for vision or accessibility, and recording technology. A better approach is to define the business interests you are protecting and draft limits that are as narrow as practical for your environment, roles, and regulatory obligations. This can typically be accomplished in a few steps.

• Define the devices and the conduct you are regulating
• Focus on high-risk items, places, and times
• Create clear recording and transcription standards
• Align your policy with other policies, such as:
  • Privacy
  • Safety
  • Information Security
  • Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
  • Confidentiality
  • Acceptable Use
  • Record Retention

ADA Considerations

Smart glasses can also function as assistive technology by providing real-time captioning, visual prompts, magnification, navigation cues, and hands-free access to instructions. That means an employee’s use of smart glasses could, in some situations, be requested as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other applicable local laws. Employers should be prepared to:

• Expect accommodation requests
• Follow an interactive process
• Approve reasonable accommodation requests that do not cause undue hardship
• Incorporate necessary safeguards
• Train human resources professionals and managers

Smart glass policies should be written with enough flexibility to allow individualized, case-by-case exceptions through the accommodation process while still protecting confidentiality, privacy, safety, and security.

National Labor Relations Act Considerations

Section 7 of the NLRA protects employees’ rights to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid or protection, such as talking with one another about wages, schedules, safety, and other working conditions. Employers may maintain workplace rules, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) scrutinizes handbook policies that could reasonably be interpreted to discourage or “chill” these protected activities. To help avoid this, employers should carefully craft policy language so that it does not interfere with an employee’s NLRA rights.

Possible Sample Policy Language

Wearable Recording Devices

Purpose: [Company Name] is committed to maintaining a safe, respectful workplace while also protecting confidential and private information. This policy is intended to address legitimate business interests such as confidentiality, privacy, safety, information security, and compliance obligations.

Definitions: “Wearable recording device” includes any wearable technology, including smart glasses, capable of capturing, recording, livestreaming, transmitting, or automatically transcribing data, audio, video, and/or other images.

Policy: Employees may not record, livestream, transmit, and/or use transcription or any other features to capture workplace conversations, meetings, or images of company property, premises, employees, vendors, customers, or company information unless the employee has a legitimate business need, has obtained advance written approval from [designated company representative], and any required notices and consents have been provided.

[Wearable recording devices may not be used and may be required to be powered off in designated restricted areas, including [list areas].]

Any approved recordings and/or data must be stored only in company-approved systems and/or applications and must be handled in accordance with the company’s [confidentiality, records retention, acceptable use, and information security] requirements. Employees may not upload company information to personal accounts, unapproved applications, or third-party services.

The company will consider reasonable accommodation under applicable laws. Employees who need an exception to this policy for disability-related reasons should contact Human Resources. Any approved accommodation may include reasonable safeguards, for example, disabling recording features and/or limiting use to specific areas, consistent with business needs and legal obligations.

Employees with questions about this policy or who believe this policy has been violated should contact Human Resources.

Nothing in this policy is intended to restrict employees from engaging in lawful protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act, including discussing wages, hours, or other terms and conditions of employment.

What’s Next?

Smart glasses are increasingly present in public and private spaces. They can deliver numerous benefits, but they obviously aren’t everyday eyewear. They have powerful recording, surveillance, and data-transfer capabilities. Employers that treat smart glasses as just another phone or smartwatch risk missing the technology’s unique privacy and security impacts. A thoughtful policy that is narrowly tailored to the workplace, considers legitimate business needs, allows for appropriate exceptions, and is implemented consistently can help organizations manage risk while respecting employee rights.

If you need assistance with developing your wearable device policy, contact us.

Note: The content of this article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Employers should consult qualified counsel to address any specific facts, locations, and industry requirements.