Privacy is a huge question mark in the current age. But what happens when the violate becomes corporate?

This IT employee shares how a new employee wore Meta glasses to work and how they couldn’t do much about it.

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The day someone walked into the office wearing a corporate grade privacy violation on their face

So this happened last week, and I’m still recovering from the collective aneurysm it caused across four departments. I work IT for a company where “please don’t leak our stuff” isn’t just a guideline, it’s practically a lifestyle.

You’d think this would be intuitive. You’d think people would maybe ask before bringing in gadgets that can livestream the entire building to Meta’s servers.

UH OH…

You would be wrong.

I’m sitting at my desk, sipping my first coffee, pretending today will be normal, because hope is a disease… when Security calls me. Not emails, not messages. Calls.

That’s already a red flag because the only time they call is when someone tries to badge in using a frozen lasagna or something equally cursed. “Uh, can you come to reception? We… have a situation.”

Great. Love that. Nothing ever begins with “situation” and ends with “and then everyone got cookies.”

I head down, and there’s an employee standing there like they’re about to board the Starship Enterprise. Backpack, badge, smile, and the most innocent-looking pair of Ray-Ban glasses I’ve ever seen. Except these are not innocent.

He could already sense the trouble…

These are smart glasses. As in: camera, microphone, AI assistant, cloud upload, easily mistaken for spy gear smart glasses.

Security looks at me with the expression of someone who has accidentally activated a bomb. “Are these… allowed?”

Now here’s the fun part: we don’t have a policy for this. At all. Zero. Nobody thought to write “don’t wear personal surveillance devices into the building,” because apparently that would have been too obvious.

So now it’s up to me, the IT guy who once had to explain what a GIF is to an executive, to make a spur of the moment compliance ruling on whether a pair of sunglasses is a tool of industrial espionage.

I ask the employee, as politely as possible, if their glasses record.

He knew this wasn’t going anywhere!

“Oh yeah!” they say proudly. “They do video, audio, photos, voice commands… basically everything!”

Cool cool cool cool cool.

Just what I needed before 10 AM.

Totally normal workplace thing.

Security’s eyes widen like the glasses have started counting down from 10.

So now begins the Grand Corporate Panic. Security is flipping through internal SOPs like they’re trying to summon a policy from sheer force of will. HR is pinging me asking if this falls under the wearables guideline (it does not).

Compliance is in a meeting because compliance is always in a meeting. Legal is unreachable because apparently the universe hates me.

That’s INSANE!

Meanwhile the employee is just vibing. Rocking their CIA cosplay. Probably wondering why half the building suddenly looks like they’re participating in a hostage negotiation.

After ten minutes of chaos and at least one person Googling “Ray-Ban smart glasses security risks corporate environment,” the consensus becomes: We have no idea what we’re doing, therefore the answer is probably NO.

So I ask the employee if they have normal, non-panopticon glasses they can switch to.

Miraculously, they do.

They swap eyewear, Security sighs like they just disarmed a bomb, and the employee walks in like nothing happened while the rest of us collectively reboot our brains.

Crisis over… right?

Wrong.

This sounds like a crisis!

Because two hours later, we receive an official ticket:

“Hi Team, We recently encountered a situation involving connected glasses (Ray-Ban model). We were unsure which guideline applies. As a precaution, we asked the employee to switch to non-connected glasses, which was fortunately possible. Could you please advise if connected glasses are allowed on our premises?”

Translation: We panicked and now we want IT to invent a rule so we don’t panic again.

We have a Legal department. 4 counsels.

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They know they need to regulate this situation!

So the ticket was closed and HR informed that IT cannot advise in this case, and they should be liaising with Legal. But I’m sitting here crafting the most professional follow-up response possible while my brain is screaming:

We didn’t have a policy because no one expected people to walk in wearing Facebook FaceCams on a Tuesday morning, Karen.

We will absolutely have a policy next week, though. Nothing motivates corporate rule-making like the sudden fear of being involuntarily livestreamed from the coffee machine.

YIKES! That sounds dangerous!

The world will soon need more policies than ever!

Let’s find out how people on Reddit reacted to this one.

This user knows the employee’s cooperative nature saved the day!

This user knows most companies have policies against such technology.

This user is surprised how there’s no policy for taking photographs without consent.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employer who has an unexpectedly hard time retrieving a company vehicle from a fired employee.

This user wants to know why this IT guy made it sound like this is a big deal.

This user thinks the glasses would definitely fall under data retention.

Somebody needs to work on some strong policies here!