NEW YORK—Beginning July 20, New York State will ban all “smart glasses” from its Unified Court System (UCS), which applies to all courts within the state, according to a recent memo from the court. Justin Barry, executive director, Office of Court Administration, issued a memorandum on July 1 to all administrative judges in the state of New York as well as New York City chief clerks and district executives, which states “no individual possessing smart glasses will be permitted to enter a UCS facility unless they voucher the smart glasses for safekeeping by uniformed personnel while the individual remains in the facility.” This ban applies to everyone entering a court facility, including attorneys, witnesses, family members, litigants and UCS employees.
New York’s ban defines smart eyewear as “eyewear or headwear containing a camera, microphone, computer or other technology that permit the user to record video or audio,” according to the memo, and explicitly applies both to plano and prescription pairs. Currently, New York State also bans filming, audio recording, broadcasting and telecasting in courts, Forbes reports, but does not ban smart phones.
According to Barry’s memo, this prohibition is in protection of the New York State Civil Rights Law, which states that individuals may not surreptitiously record court proceedings.
New York appears to have enacted the first state-wide ban on smart eyewear in courts, but courts and districts in other states have also issued their own smaller prohibitions. Philadelphia courts issued a ban in March of this year, NBC Philadelphia reports. The order states that anyone “wearing or possessing such devices will be denied entry” to the court. In addition, unauthorized recording or photography within the court can result in sanctions that include arrest.
In Wisconsin, the United States District Court updated its prohibited items list to include smart glasses in February 2025. In a statement, the Court wrote, “This includes Meta glasses, Google Glass, and any other eyeglasses, prescription or non-prescription, that have recording capability.”
Individual judges have also made the decision to ban or monitor smart glasses in their courtrooms. In February 2026, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in the Los Angeles County Superior Court as part of a lawsuit that claimed social media companies design their platforms to be addictive to children. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl explicitly warned Zuckerberg and others in the courtroom that they could not wear smart glasses. In particular, the judge seemed to be concerned with the glasses’ AI capabilities, including facial recognition.
“If your glasses are recording, you must take them off,” the Times reported her saying. “It is the order of this court that there must be no facial recognition of the jury. If you have done that, you must delete it. This is very serious.”
It is of note that no smart eyewear bans in courts make exceptions for smart eyewear that includes the wearer’s prescription, potentially requiring those who enter courthouses to have more than one pair of eyewear. Courtney Harding, a Forbes contributor who specializes in smart eyewear, VR and AI, notes that some people use smart glasses for their live translation abilities; however, courts in New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California and other states all provide qualified interpreters for those who need them.
New York’s wide-ranging ban may raise other logistical issues, TechRepublic notes, because of how many organizations regularly visit courthouses, such as law firms, media companies, government contractors and more. In addition, New York’s policy may influence states in other courts, or other public facilities around the country, to follow suit, TechRepublic said.
