British Airways: Filming Crew W Meta Glasses Could Get Your Tickets Cancelled

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75 points bookofjoeabout 1 hour ago 122 comments
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andy99|about 1 hour ago
In the US anyway it feels like the battle for public spaces has been lost. Everywhere I go people are listening full blast to their phones with no headphones - I find this about 100x more obnoxious than filming. I think both should be banned with Singapore-style punishments but I expect even if companies posture about this nothing will happen. United famously prohibited using your audio without headphones but based on my trip with them last week that has done nothing. At this point it’s a societal problem that needs a tougher approach.
Avicebron|about 1 hour ago
I hope it's not fully lost, I hate when people play music in public and don't have a good answer about filming people in public with these glasses but I don't want it.

Honestly making it socially unacceptable is probably the only solution. Not sure how that happens though...

exe34|33 minutes ago
Play Disney songs on your phone, they won't be able to use the footage.
qup|44 minutes ago
You can't make it illegal. The first amendment protects it.

Trying to police the shape of the camera is silly.

eqvinox|1 minute ago
> Trying to police the shape of the camera is silly.

Why?

buran77|28 minutes ago
> You can't make it illegal. The first amendment protects it.

I'm not a legal expert but the first amendment doesn't generally give the right to secretly record people, especially in places where there are already laws about hidden cameras, recording, privacy, etc.

It's not about the shape as much as the intention and execution.

4ndrewl|29 minutes ago
I'm not a USian but doesn't the first amendment apply to restrictions by the state?

It also doesn't protect from any consequences of your free speech of course.

mschuster91|40 minutes ago
> The first amendment protects it.

The 1st Amendment does not apply to private property. Property owners, even owners of public utilities, can absolutely set boundaries and trespass people. In some states, property owners can literally shoot trespassers to death.

AlecSchueler|33 minutes ago
It doesn't apply in most of the world in any case.
proggy|20 minutes ago
Public space is precious, but I’d just like to make it clear for the casual HN reader that suggesting “Singapore-style” punishment for antisocial behavior implies a pro-caning stance. Caning is a violent, abhorrent, and cruel practice that violates the fundamental human rights of the convicted person. It leaves the victim of state violence with permanent scars and long-lasting trauma. Time and again it has been shown that capital punishment is not any more effective at preventing recidivism than rehabilitation or compulsory community service.

If you want positive, lasting change, you have to start at the start, modeling positive social and emotional programs in public schools and community programs. Our society is only as healthy as the core beliefs that are willingly held and practiced by its population. Raw state power through fear and intimidation does not change people’s minds as much as widespread belief about what is inherently right and wrong.

otterley|3 minutes ago
> Time and again it has been shown that capital punishment is not any more effective at preventing recidivism than rehabilitation or compulsory community service.

I think you meant corporal punishment, not capital punishment. The latter is when you lose your life.

Do the same studies hold true for corporal punishment? I am not familiar with the literature.

buran77|31 minutes ago
> people are listening full blast to their phones with no headphones - I find this about 100x more obnoxious than filming

Two very different concerns. One is annoying in that very moment and has no lasting consequences. The other can have all kinds of consequences depending on what was secretly recorded, and where that recording was used.

danlitt|42 minutes ago
It's more obnoxious, but less creepy. They're not really bad in the same way.
bradlys|18 minutes ago
I don't see this outside of NYC. Where are you specifically?
exe34|34 minutes ago
You can always join in with baby shark until they get a hint.
twoodfin|about 1 hour ago
I fly BA across the Atlantic every few months, and today for the first time the safety briefing included a specific callout of respecting privacy while filming aboard.
logifail|33 minutes ago
> today for the first time the safety briefing included a specific callout of respecting privacy while filming aboard

This policy change isn't that new, should have been included in the briefing since April/May 2026?

alibarber|about 1 hour ago
KLM have been doing so in Europe for a couple of years now from my memory.
karakoram|about 1 hour ago
Amazing news! Something like this should implemented in all areas. What if my family and I are on the flight and I don't want them filmed?

I have heard the middle east has some very strict public filming laws, especially for women and children. Would be very popular globally!

fastball|about 1 hour ago
What was preventing this in the era of "everyone has a smartphone"?
delecti|about 1 hour ago
It takes deliberate effort to hide that you're filming with a smartphone. It doesn't require extra effort to disguise the act of filming with Meta glasses as simply looking at someone.
qup|42 minutes ago
Why do they need to hide it?

His family doesn't want recorded whether it's hidden or not.

But it's public, so...

LoganDark|17 minutes ago
> Why do they need to hide it?

Because if they don't, they'll be shamed or ordered to stop? Like, why does anyone ever hide anything frowned upon?

cubefox|about 1 hour ago
False. The Meta glasses have a blinking white LED while filming. The camera gets disabled if you try to cover it. Filming someone with a phone is much easier to disguise.
asteroidburger|about 1 hour ago
It's much more obvious that someone is holding up their phone to record than someone wearing glasses containing an inconspicuous camera and recording LED that may have been tampered with.
bigyabai|about 1 hour ago
Sometimes it is. I regularly see people scrolling TikTok and Instagram in public, they might as well be shooting ultrawide 4k footage and I'd have no idea.
bookofjoe|38 minutes ago
... and streaming it live to Instagram or YouTube
cubefox|about 1 hour ago
Tampering is much harder than using an ordinary phone in a way that looks inconspicuous.
qup|42 minutes ago
Shirt pocket
zetanor|31 minutes ago
Social mores. The desire of individuals to farm social capital and the desire of corporations to monetize this drive completely displaced "is it okay if I film this?" for a decade or two, but it seems to be coming back somewhat. I'm not holding my breath, though.
vkou|34 minutes ago
What prevents murder in areas where everyone has a gun?

Consequences.

The consequences of these glasses should be that in any private space, the offender either remove them, or remove themselves. Just like there are consequences to trying to hold up your phone in a way that looks like you are recording staff or other patrons in many private spaces.

jjallen|25 minutes ago
My opinion (which is about filming in general, not the glasses) which seems to contradict others' but:

So if someone acts up and starts screaming it's suddenly ok to film, or even when people are committing crimes on board it's not ok? Who's to say when this is happening or not?

If filming is banned there will be less evidence for when this does happen, and people could get away with more crimes (although admittedly the bar is higher on a plane and the flight staff's testimony will carry lots of weight).

I think planes are public places (because 200 people are crammed into a tiny tube of metal) and your expectation of privacy should be diminished there. There are too many potential things that could happen on a plane. People are too close and vulnerable while on a plane. We cannot run or protect ourselves as well.

And as far as flight attendants, unfortunately they are at least partially responsible for both the safety and wellbeing of those on board. That is literally their job.

Banning filming of them will reduce their sense of urgency and responsibility, just like it would of cops if we were not allowed to film them.

There are just too many things that need to go right and also that could go wrong on a flight.

Just recently someone took a photo of an ostensible pedophile while on board conversing on a website for pedophiles and now the world knows. If all photography or filming was banned then this wouldn't have happened.

Analemma_|17 minutes ago
> I think planes are public places

They literally aren't, though. They are the airline's private property, and you've entered into a contract of carriage with them to temporarily have access to their property under the terms of the contract. To some extent these terms are circumscribed by law, but in the absence such law, you are bound by whatever terms you agreed to in the contract. If you don't agree not to film in the plane, you're free to not accept the contract.

Onavo|1 minute ago
> They literally aren't, though.

There are enough structural constraints in launching airline alternatives that they might as well be, especially the national carriers.

Do you expect the masses to fly private jets or Cessnas to cross the channel? It's like saying electrical companies shouldn't be regulated too much in certain jurisdictions because the generators are privately owned rather than being publicly owned. People will laugh you out of the court of public opinion. Your point is a distinction without a difference.

arjie|about 1 hour ago
It's really unfortunate that to make the world visual-legible to a machine we have to permit recording in a high-fidelity format. I'd love to have an AI assistant perceive the universe around me and assist but I prefer to give people a measure of discretion in personal interactions. I've used the Meta Glasses in public, though, and they're really fantastic. You can ask about fish you can see, or you can capture your kids in a moment. Such a pity about this perhaps immutable property of life.
binlog|44 minutes ago
Willing to bet that after all the Meta glasses backlash companies are going to start releasing AI devices that have cameras but don't store photos or videos.
arjie|42 minutes ago
Haha, "RAM-only camera!". We'd lose the candid moments with the babies but a small price to pay to have the intelligence available at a moment's notice.
otterley|about 1 hour ago
There's nothing new here. European airlines generally prohibit filming the activities of their employees, regardless of technology. In fact, most of them (unlike U.S.-based airlines) try to anonymize their employees. They don't wear name tags, for example.

I've had this be a problem when I was trying to capture a FA's photo while disembarking the aircraft after he rudely chastised me for using the bathroom "too many times" due to a bladder condition.

andylynch|about 1 hour ago
It is not just company policies, this reflects the law across the EU.
otterley|17 minutes ago
Do you have a reference to this law? I researched it in Germany (where the incident happened) and did not find anything that prohibited it.
alightsoul|about 1 hour ago
As a former customer service representative I have no sympathy for you. this is in no way the FAs fault. And this way of thinking, believing it is the service employee's fault seems to be the American way of thinking, you don't see it anywhere else in the world. Did you ever tell the airline it was a bladder condition? Most people do not and just say the service employee is an inconvenience and should be reported or fired

Any service employee acting in a way that does not favor the customer does so because it is their job to do exactly that. You do not report the employee, you take it higher up. The problem is never the employee. The problem is never caused by the employee. The problem is the policy that was created by some director at the company, that the employee is just following like a robot because that is their job. The employee has never heard of that director and not even their superiors have heard of them or know who they are. You could have contacted customer service and gotten credit for it. The service employee is powerless. You can even report the company itself but never the employee because they are just robots.

otterley|42 minutes ago
> As a former customer service representative I have no sympathy for you.

Given this response, I can see why you are a "former" CSR and not a current one. You need empathy skills.

> this is in no way the FAs fault.

Are you really arguing that the FA was in the right for criticizing me for using the bathroom when it was safe to do so? My medical issues are a private matter; I don't have to disclose them to anyone as a condition of using it.

> The problem is the policy that was created by some director at the company, that the employee is just following like a robot because that is their job.

I find it difficult to believe that a director ordered their FAs to humiliate their customers for having to use the bathroom. You're going to need some evidence that this is the case.

alightsoul|38 minutes ago
It's not like anyone likes the job, it's just the one that happens to hire the fastest. It's delusional to think anyone gets the job because they like it.

And an airplane has a limited amount of bathroom water that has to be shared among all passengers. Unbelievable I know.

otterley|35 minutes ago
> It's not like anyone likes the job, it's just the one that happens to hire the fastest. It's delusional to think anyone gets the job because they like it.

I don't see how this is relevant at all. Just because you don't like your job doesn't mean you should be rude to your customers, and that you shouldn't be identified and terminated if you are.

> And an airplane has a limited amount of bathroom water that has to be shared among all passengers. Unbelievable I know.

This isn't relevant. First, this was as we were disembarking (the plane had already landed), and second, it is incredibly rare for a flight to be diverted because it's exhausted its lavatory water supply. Have you even seen a story of this? I can't recall one in my (somewhat long) lifetime.

You seem to persist in making points without any supporting evidence. How about you stop that?

alightsoul|27 minutes ago
It's clearly enough of a problem that European airlines saw a need to de identify their employees. And given private medical conditions you shouldn't wear a mask during a pandemic, either.

I could go into detail but that wouldn't be productive because you clearly believe you are more important than anyone around you. I used to see a lot of those people in Hollywood, those were the worst.

How about you stop editing comments to make them seem less aggressive? It just reflects you despise anyone who doesn't think you are as important as you believe.

otterley|26 minutes ago
You need to go outside and touch grass, not double down on a conversation that makes you look more unhinged with every reply.
tene80i|44 minutes ago
Partly true, but rudeness is the fault of the employee.
cubefox|40 minutes ago
> The problem is never the employee.

That's not true. Humans don't magically become 100% good just because they are employed.

gib444|41 minutes ago
I feel like you've just seen red and ignored the given situation.

Your response seems to indicate it's perfectly normal and inline with standard policies to admonish a passenger for using the bathroom too much. Does any airline have a bathroom visit quota?

> The service employee is powerless

You're saying they're forced to monitor bathroom trips and pass comment?

jgrahamc|about 1 hour ago
Seems fair; I won't speak to people wearing glasses with cameras in them.
qup|41 minutes ago
How many times has this come up now? Like how many refusals?
vkou|31 minutes ago
The more we ostracise people doing that now, the less likely it will come up in the future.

In any place of business that I patronize, if I see one, I will request that staff should ask the offender to remove them, or remove themselves from the property.

nagalluri|about 1 hour ago
It's unfortunate that Meta Glasses found PMF with folks who want to nonconsensually record social interactions
jacquesm|28 minutes ago
The only other group besides creeps that wants these (and that I think should be gifted them for free) are the visually impaired.
trial3|about 1 hour ago
they’re not called Pervert Glasses for nothing
encom|about 1 hour ago
They have no other purpose.
bryanlarsen|about 1 hour ago
Airplanes are a great use case for display glasses. They make using a computer or watching a movie in economy class so much nicer. I like using display glasses that don't have a camera. But unfortunately everybody assumes they do have one. Assuming I'm a dork because I'm wearing them is fair. Assuming I'm a creep isn't.
gizajob|44 minutes ago
Airplanes are a great use case for just chilling out and doing nothing or being bored and enjoying a drink in the sky.
bryanlarsen|39 minutes ago
That would mean I was fully prepared for the meeting I am flying to before the flight. Would be nice, but alas I am not that organized.
gs17|about 1 hour ago
I haven't been bothered over them yet, but I fully expect a conversation where someone yells at me for "filming", I show there's no cameras, and they insist they're simply hidden.
bryanlarsen|about 1 hour ago
I haven't been bothered over them yet, either. They're tethered to the computer, so you naturally take them off when you go to the bathroom, et cetera. I try and lower them when I speak to the flight attendant, but I know that I don't always do so. Even without the camera misunderstanding, keeping them on while talking to people is rude in the same way that wearing mirror sunglasses while talking to people is rude.

It's mostly curiosity, people wondering what they are. They expect them to be camera glasses but believe me when I tell them they aren't.

qup|38 minutes ago
> wearing mirror sunglasses while talking to people is rude

Never heard this one before. And my family cares about being rude.

hbcdbff|about 1 hour ago
Saw a guy the other day in the gym wearing these

I joined many others in giving him a “shit on a shoe” look.

otterley|about 1 hour ago
Have you considered raising it to management?
barbazoo|about 1 hour ago
Or heaven forbid even communicating with the other human directly.
andy99|about 1 hour ago
The people that are doing this are self absorbed assholes and confronting them will almost always lead to an escalation that makes it worse for you. Management is unfortunately the better approach here.
tene80i|about 1 hour ago
Sure, but if someone’s being an asshole they don’t always respond well to being confronted. If they were a calm and reasonable sort they wouldn’t be behaving like that in the first place.
asteroidburger|about 1 hour ago
The whole "recording glasses" thing puts a damper on that.
qup|36 minutes ago
I don't want to purposefully engage people who already ignore social norms.

High risk activity.

arccy|about 1 hour ago
We need to bring back the term "Glasshole".
bryanlarsen|37 minutes ago
I think the 2026 term "Pervert Glasses" is stronger.
figmert|23 minutes ago
I hope more airlines follow and governments do it too. Such a ridiculous product.
kay_o|about 1 hour ago
Those glasses should be an actual crime everywhere.
lgats|about 1 hour ago
unless perhaps you need them for accessibility reasons.
kay_o|about 1 hour ago
There is no accessibility reason ever for covering up the light or recording. I will accept describing objects in FOV etc but nothing should be persistable or sent to a third party that trains on them and saves them without the consent of everyone in view, a company should build non-criminal glasses without these feature sets and have insurance pay for them.
doublerabbit|about 1 hour ago
Which accessibility reasons are these?
yjftsjthsd-h|44 minutes ago
A camera and some rudimentary software should be a pretty good fix for color blindness. A camera and modern AI is a decent mitigation to partial or perhaps even complete blindness (prior art: Be My Eyes). A microphone, STT, and display would help with deafness.
bryanlarsen|44 minutes ago
They're fabulous for blind people. https://afb.org/aw/fall2025/meta-glasses-review
rjsw|about 1 hour ago
There is a short video on the BBC website of a blind person using them to give an audible warning of uneven pavement/sidewalks in front of them.
delichon|about 1 hour ago
E.g. video to speech for a blind person.
qup|35 minutes ago
Video doesn't do speech, that's audio.

So a microphone vs a camera

delichon|33 minutes ago
Video to speech is audible narration.
marcosscriven|about 1 hour ago
I use them alone, in a glider, to help review my own flights. It gives a very helpful PoV, and I can see the instruments and where I was looking.

That should be a crime?

doublerabbit|31 minutes ago
One of the few rare real reasons to owning and if that's the real reason. In that instance the better approach is that the glasses should be held under a permit.

The camera should be disabled until you obtain a permit.

Drones require a license and agreement to fly, these should be too.

marcosscriven|19 minutes ago
Why wouldn’t it be the real reason? You like to assume people are lying?

Yes, it’s the real and ONLY reason I have these. When my flight is over I take them off and revert to regular shades.

delichon|about 1 hour ago
I assert the right and duty of surveillance reciprocity. Little brother may and should watch big brother, and share.
lxgr|about 1 hour ago
Sure, go ahead and film corporations and governments to your heart's content [1], but please make sure no humans are in your frame.

[1] If legally permitted in your jurisdiction

qup|34 minutes ago
Who do you think runs governments and corporations, if not humans?
akersten|about 1 hour ago
What about filming them with a regular smartphone?
BeetleB|about 1 hour ago
I believe the guidelines are general - not specific to glasses.
akersten|about 1 hour ago
Interesting that the title chooses to editorialize and call out the glasses specifically then. Kind of enragement bait imo
nekusar|about 1 hour ago
Depends. Is British airways also agreeing not to record as well, or is just one of those paternalistic 'we don't want YOU to have evidence of wrongdoing'?

My guess, given England, is that they double down on more cameras, and conveniently lose recordings they don't like.

ohyoutravel|about 1 hour ago
This is the worst take I’ve seen all day. I’m going outside.
gruez|about 1 hour ago
Why? Airports are probably the most surveilled places aside from casinos. Why should corporations or the establishment have a monopoly on surveillance and the footage, especially when the footage is (presumably) for the purposes of scrutinizing the corporation/establishment itself? I think the "this call is recorded for quality control purposes" principle should apply. If you're recording, I should be able to record too.
falkensmaize|34 minutes ago
I don’t think anyone really objects to you being able to record video in public, but do object to you being able to secretly record video in public. There’s a huge difference imho between you holding up a phone to record an interaction and surreptitiously recording one with glasses.
gruez|30 minutes ago
>I don’t think anyone really objects to you being able to record video in public, but do object to you being able to secretly record video in public.

See the quotes in my other comment. It's pretty clear it's not about being "secretly" recorded.

bryanlarsen|31 minutes ago
The article makes clear that BA prohibits any sort of filming of their employees without consent.
doublerabbit|about 1 hour ago
I enter a building in acknowledgement that I am going to be under surveillance. If I don't agree then I don't enter that building.

I do not board a plane to be discreetly recorded by a pair of glasses. It's creepy and just privacy invasive.

gruez|about 1 hour ago
>I do not board a plan to be discreetly recorded by a pair of glasses. It's creepy and just privacy invasive.

That's not what's under debate though.

>British Airways Warns Filming Crew With Meta Smart Glasses Could Get Your Tickets Cancelled

>The reported change builds on restrictions introduced earlier this year against photographing or filming BA employees without their consent. Livestreaming employees without permission is also prohibited.

>>“This includes filming, live streaming or taking photographs of any BA crew or other colleagues without their consent.”

Emphasis mine.

If they're doing this to protect their passengers privacy, they're doing a really good job at hiding that.

otterley|about 1 hour ago
Seems like a fair question. There is a reasonable current of thought out there that rights and responsibilities should be reciprocal between businesses, government, and individuals.
CPLX|39 minutes ago
In contrast, this is the only reasonable take. Given the extensive history of large multinational corporations abusing the rights of consumers with impunity, letting one of the two parties in any such dispute record the other, but not the reverse, is obviously unfair and unreasonable.
CPLX|about 1 hour ago
I have decidedly mixed feelings about this. In general, I don't think people should just be allowed to record and post other people's private moments. I think we don't want to live a life where we are at risk of every single thing that we've ever done being posted as video.

On the other hand, I travel a lot, and I take videos frequently to protect myself. Almost invariably, what I'm talking about here is walking around a rental car when I pick it up and drop it off. But there are other scenarios, like documenting that I was at a gate on time if they're claiming I was late and denying me boarding.

Of course, there are the ones that are contemplated by this article, like a dispute with another passenger or someone about what happened or what's happening, since the consequences of that stuff can be so severe.

I think a lot of European countries have laws around this that usually have exceptions for scenarios like that. For example, I was once recording the condition of a drop-off rental car in Italy. The rental car employee started screaming at me, claiming that, since he had been in the frame at some point or another, what I was doing was illegal. Meanwhile, he was refusing to give me a written receipt or some other proof that I had actually returned the car. If you know anything about rental cars in Italy, you want that, so I just took the video to confirm that I had, in fact, given them the keys and the car.

After it blew up and some research was done, it became clear that, while Italian law does have very strict restrictions on publishing recordings of people, recording your own customer service interactions for purposes of protecting yourself is clearly allowed.

I think a fairer policy here would be sharing, publishing, or distributing any recordings is very strictly prohibited, but merely possessing them can be permitted if the recorder can make a bona fide assertion that it was done for purposes of recording or protecting themselves and their rights as a customer.

toomuchtodo|about 1 hour ago
Well done, more of this.
analog8374|about 1 hour ago
Assuming that nobody is gonna exploit it for marketing or other nefarious ends. A society that constantly videos everything would be kindof great. Everything documented. Everything searchable. Crime might become impossible. Like, no more murder or illegal dumping.
uwagar|about 1 hour ago
what are they scared about?

BA sells the accent folks. not service.

yieldcrv|about 1 hour ago
best use I’ve seen for meta glasses have been parties, where the host hands them out and takes your phone as collateral or locks them up in some way

everyone gets content and gets to be present, optionally or mandatory turn in of the glasses when leaving

everyone knows what they're walking into and some level of curation and community lets people still be loose, or know what level of discretion they should have

rdtsc|about 1 hour ago
> where the host hands them out and takes your phone as collateral or locks them up in some way

can't tell if it's a joke or not, if not, i'd turn right back and walk away

MikeTheGreat|43 minutes ago
> optionally or mandatory turn in of the glasses when leaving

"optionally?" What sort of parties are you going to where the host casually hands out Smart Glasses as party favors? :)

I don't even know what I'd do with a pair but I definitely want to be invited to parties hosted by folks who have this kind of wealth!

pirates|31 minutes ago
It doesn’t happen, nobody is buying tens or dozens or pairs of these things just to hand out at a party.
yokoprime|about 1 hour ago
that sounds absolutely awful, i would just turn around in the door and leave
yieldcrv|about 1 hour ago
yeah thats how consent works, you’re informed and have an option
dataflow|about 1 hour ago
> where the host hands them out and takes your phone as collateral

You got me curious... what kind of parties do you go to where everyone trusts everyone else with filming and the privacy around it, but the host doesn't trust guests to return the glasses?

yieldcrv|about 1 hour ago
it’s just dual purpose at events that already take or lock up your phone

before you had no user generated content, and now you do

so trust is a misnomer, the exchange is just built in and nearly foolproof

qup|31 minutes ago
Where have you seen this take place?

What was the content for?

yieldcrv|27 minutes ago
wedding,

yacht party with no particular occasion behind it,

renegades (referring to what the term “rave” used to refer to)

ryandrake|44 minutes ago
Why do people need to "get content"?
yieldcrv|24 minutes ago
need? they don’t, it’s catering to a want that was already going to happen in a less-present way with their phones
gizajob|42 minutes ago
This is a simulation of content production, not a party.
yokoprime|about 1 hour ago
Good. More of this
binlog|about 1 hour ago
Good