By Cierra A. Phillips
A glimpse into the future of developing technology seems to come straight out of a sci-fi movie—but does it end with a dystopian twist? As technology has advanced, many fantastical predictions about the innovations the future will hold have become commonplace.[1] From self-driving cars to artificial intelligence (AI) companions, the last decade has seen a massive marketing push towards cutting-edge technology invading our everyday lives.[2]
However, with great power and influence comes even greater potential for the infringement of personal rights. Scholars in cybersecurity and digital studies imagine that if there is no improvement in the governance of AI and digital innovation’s surveillance, the future may hold a “worse-than-Orwellian cyber-dystopia.”[3]
Scholars aren’t the only ones concerned. The emerging technology of smart glasses and their integration of AI has led to mass concern regarding privacy rights.[4] Following Meta’s Ray-Ban AI launch, Apple has recently obtained a patent for its own smart glasses, with Amazon following closely behind.[5] Apple’s patent details that their spin on smart glasses will include features similar to augmented reality (AR) devices that would visually display information.[6] This technology is a leap beyond the AI-integrated camera accessories on the market and may indicate a future focus toward garnering fast, visual information under constant wearable surveillance.[7] AI-integrated smart glasses often collect, process, and transmit data to cloud-based servers operated by third parties in real time.[8] This generates cybersecurity risks and potential breaches of sector-specific privacy regulations[9], including violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)[10] and client-attorney privilege violations.[11]
These growing privacy concerns regarding the constant data-capture of wearable surveillance technology necessitate the question–what can effectively regulate it?[12] Application of slowly adapting legal doctrine to accelerating technological innovation reveals that intellectual property (IP) law is better suited to regulate emerging smart glasses technology.[13] While privacy law has struggled to adequately respond to these developments, IP law remains the dominant regulatory force shaping the design, deployment, and enforcement of smart glasses.[14]
A 2024 project by two Harvard University juniors, Anhphu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, demonstrated the struggle of existing privacy law to keep up with technological innovation.[15] Nguyen and Ardayfio built software that utilizes smart glasses paired with public data sources to retrieve personal information about strangers just by looking at them.[16] How’d they pull it off? The students modified Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which contain a camera, to stream live video via Instagram to a smartphone application.[17] Their software then matches faces in the video against public data sources, allowing the system to return sensitive, personal details within about 90 seconds.[18] The application only took the students days to code.[19]
The students emphasized that the design of their project showed the capabilities of current and emerging technology, as well as highlight gaps in privacy protection for individuals whose data is widely available online.[20] A cybersecurity expert described the project as a “warning shot,” illustrating that even when individuals remove their data from certain public databases, their personal information is still harvested due to its widespread availability.[21] The kicker? Nguyen and Ardayfio stated that they spent more time investigating privacy law gaps than writing the code, and they hoped the demonstration would motivate policymakers to act.[22]
This project demonstrates the limited legal restrictions in using facial recognition and AI in combination with smart glasses, particularly when the source data is publicly available online. Furthermore, it demonstrates how IP law remains a final defense against growing privacy concerns in emerging technology as policymakers struggle to keep up.
IP law functions as a regulatory doctrine for smart glasses technology through its control of the scope of patents, trade secret protection, and use of exclusionary enforcement remedies, leaving privacy harms largely externalized.[23] The result? Tech companies design smart glasses in compliance with IP policy incentives, rather than in the public’s interest in minimizing intrusions of their privacy.[24] This asymmetry highlights substantial concerns for both innovation governance and individual privacy rights. But what if IP law altered how patent law functions as a governance mechanism for innovation?
Smart glasses are best understood not as singular consumer products but as layered technological systems integrating optical hardware, embedded software, and cloud-based data analytics.[25] Each of these layers is independently subject to IP protection. Utility patents typically protect optical components and display systems; software patents and trade secrets shield computer vision algorithms; and contractual terms embedded in platform agreements often control the captured data.[26]
Patent law plays a central role in defining the scope of permissible use of AR.[27] Many of the proposed smart-glasses patents claim functional processes such as object recognition, facial identification, and contextual labeling of the environment.[28] Thus, patent law may be the primary force in regulating AR capabilities in smart glasses technology and addressing rising privacy concerns.
Beyond defining the scope of permissible use, IP law enforcement mechanisms operate as de facto regulatory tools.[29] Injunctions and exclusion orders can force companies to redesign smart-glasses features, disable certain functions, or withdraw products from the market entirely.[30] Although courts tend to disavow regulatory intent, patent remedies frequently produce industry changes.[31] The Supreme Court’s decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange introduced a public-interest balancing test for injunctions, but courts post-eBay Inc. rarely consider privacy impacts when enforcing IP rights.[32] As a result, design choices that mitigate IP risk likely take precedence over privacy-protective alternatives. Thus, utilizing patent enforcement to direct the market towards privacy protection provides the strongest path to address increasing concerns.
The legal and governance strategies of regimes outside of the United States highlight alternative approaches. The European Union’s new data privacy and security law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), incorporates privacy and data-protection principles into technology governance, imposing design obligations absent from IP doctrine in the United States.[33] Emerging AI regulations further integrate risk-based assessments that account for surveillance and biometric harms.[34] IP law in the United States should recognize its regulatory role by incorporating privacy considerations into claim scope construction, disclosure requirements, and remedial analysis. Without such integration, IP law will continue to govern AI and AR-integrated smart glasses and other emerging technologies without accountability.
If seeing is believing, the truth is now clear—smart glasses mark a turning point in the legal regulation of perception. In the absence of robust privacy law protections, intellectual property law emerges as the potential, primary system determining who may see, record, analyze, and monetize the physical world. Recognizing IP law’s role as the law of vision is a necessary step toward equitable governance of emerging wearable surveillance technology.[35]
[1] Lori Grunin, We Explored CES 2026. Here’s the Cool and Smart Tech That Blew Our Minds, CNET (Jan. 8, 2026, 18:51 PT), https://www.cnet.com/tech/the-coolest-tech-at-ces-2026/.
[2] Id.
[3] Janna Anderson & Lee Raine, 3. Themes: The Most Harmful or Menacing Changes in Digital Life that Are Likely by 2035, PEW RSCH. CTR.: (Jun. 21, 2023), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/06/21/themes-the-most-harmful-or-menacing-changes-in-digital-life-that-are-likely-by-2035/#harms-related-to-the-future-of-human-connections-governance-institutions.
[4] Tanya Pandey, Big Privacy Risks in View as Glasses Turn AI Smart, ET Explainer: Tech. (Jan. 6, 2026, 06:00 IST), https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/et-explainer-big-privacy-risks-in-view-as-glasses-turn-ai-smart/articleshow/126356794.cms.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Joseph Lazzarotti, The Hidden Legal Minefield: Compliance Concerns with AI Smart Glasses, Part 4: Data Security, Breach Notification, and Third-Party AI Processing Risks, JacksonLewis (Jan. 16, 2026), https://www.workplaceprivacyreport.com/2026/01/articles/hipaa/the-hidden-legal-minefield-compliance-concerns-with-ai-smart-glasses-part-4-data-security-breach-notification-and-third-party-ai-processing-risks/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
[9] Id.
[10] See generally, 45 C.F.R. § 164.105(a)(2)(ii) (2013) (establishing national standards providing individuals rights over their protected health information).
[11] See generally, Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 1.6 cmt. 4 (A.B.A. 2026) (discussing the prohibition of a lawyer from revealing information relating to the representation of a client through personal disclosure or conduct that could reasonably lead to discovery).
[12] Billy Hurley, With AR Glasses, IAPP’s Joe Jones Sees Security and Privacy Challenges, IT Brew (Oct. 31, 2025), https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2025/10/31/with-ar-glasses-iapp-s-joe-jones-sees-security-and-privacy-challenges.
[13] See generally, Megan Richardson, Intellectual Property and Privacy Law, Handbook of Intell. Prop. Rsch. (May, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198826743.003.0010 (IP and privacy law have imbricated to address the loss of control over personal information and identity in the digital world).
[14] Id.
[15] Brandon Truitt, New Smart Glasses Technology Reveals Your Personal Information When Users Look At You, CBS News (Oct. 7, 2024, 10:54 EDT), https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/harvard-students-software-glasses-personal-information/.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Id.
[22] Id.
[23] See also, Lazzarotti, supra note 8.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] See generally, 35 U.S.C. §101 (conditions and requirements for patentable inventions).
[27] Id.
[28] See, Grunin, supra note 1.
[29] See generally, Public Views on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Policy, USPTO (Oct. 7, 2020), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/USPTO_AI-Report_2020-10-07.pdf (provides stakeholder views on the impact of AI across IP policy and developing issues about database protection in the face of rapidly changing and critical technology for American innovation).
[30] See also, John Golden, United States: Injunctions in Patent Law: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Flexibility and Tailoring, Cambridge Univ. Press, 291-312 (Apr. 28, 2022), https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/injunctions-in-patent-law/united-states/8ADCCBD44C95D002B5B59885033C731D.
[31] Id.
[32] eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388, 390 (2006).
[33] What Is GDPR, The EU’s New Data Protection Law?, GDPR (last visited Jan. 30, 2026), https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/.
[34] Regulating Artificial Intelligence: U.S. and International Approaches and Considerations for Congress, Cong. Rsch. Serv. (Jun. 4, 2025), at 11, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48555/R48555.3.pdf.
[35] AI was used for the scoping and outlining of this paper.