Meta patent shows a hardware kill switch for its camera glasses. It can’t come sooner.

Meta’s smart glasses, which have been dubbed "pervert glasses" due to concerns over privacy and harassment, may soon have a solution. A newly granted patent reveals the company’s potential answer: a hardware privacy mute circuit. This patent, granted last week, describes a physical switch that cuts power to the camera sensor, rather than a software setting.

This hardware kill switch cannot be hacked, unlike Meta’s previous attempts. The company refers to this as "tamper-resistant privacy controls that cannot be compromised through software exploits." Currently, the only indication of recording is a small LED that lights up. However, people have found ways around this, such as covering the light or exploiting the fact that the recording stops when the LED is covered.

Meta recently pushed an update that ends recording when the LED is covered mid-clip, but this is still software-based. The hardware kill switch, if integrated into the product, would provide the most effective protection against unauthorized recording.