Privacy concerns put smart glasses under scrutiny as Norway seeks temporary ban

Norway has looked at AI glasses and done something impeccably Scandinavian: a temporary ban, in some places, sometimes, for a bit. The government is proposing it for public spaces where "privacy is particularly important" — healthcare facilities, plus fitness centres with changing rooms and showers. Which means the Norwegian state has just spent real civil-servant hours discovering that people in changing rooms are, on the whole, undressed. Bravo. Somewhere a policy adviser is being promoted for noticing.

Now admire the qualifiers, because they are doing all the heavy lifting. Not a total ban — still permitted in some places, still permitted for private use. This isn't regulation, it's a strongly worded municipal sigh with a start date attached. A temporary prohibition on a device category is what you get when a government wants the press release of having acted and the quiet comfort of never having to enforce anything. Meanwhile the glasses keep recording on the bus, in the queue, on the pavement outside the swimming pool — which is, after all, where the genuinely humiliating footage gets captured.

And note what's being banned: rooms, not behaviour. The proposal targets premises rather than the wearer, which means the privacy that actually matters — the unconsenting stranger on the street — is left to firmware defaults and good manners. Norway isn't in the EU, so harmonised rules arrive on a different, slower bus, and hardware companies wait magnificently: "temporary" means the measure expires politely before the next product cycle finishes shipping, because no devices were ever going to be un-invented by a Nordic memo. Voters get "we did something," firms get a compliance holiday with a calendar reminder, and the changing-room shower remains, structurally, fine with an algorithmic audience. Still, credit where it's due: the Norwegians reached the naked truth faster than most parliaments manage a consensus on anything.