NearLens, a free iOS app, detected 15 Bluetooth signals from camera-equipped smart glasses among roughly 7,000 attendees at Ottawa’s TD Place Arena, according to a test run by its creator.
Marcos Rezende, a senior product designer at Kitchener-Waterloo event platform Hive and a former Microsoft employee, built the app to flag Ray-Ban Meta and similar camera glasses when they come within Bluetooth range. He said Canadian privacy law has a blind spot: smart eyewear can record bystanders who have no way of knowing they are being filmed.
How It Works
NearLens does not access device cameras or microphones. It does not identify who is wearing the glasses or confirm whether they are recording. It runs on-device, using AI where available, with no backend, no user accounts, no analytics and no third-party SDKs. Rezende said the constraints exist
Sources
- Betakit: contributed reporting
- BetaKit: contributed reporting
- Tom's Hardware Italia: contributed reporting
Reporting compiled and contextualised by TechScoop Canada. Figures reconciled across the sources above.
Originally reported by Betakit.