- Oslo bans smart glasses in all schools during school day to protect children from covert data collection by Meta.
- Vice Mayor calls out Meta for making it impossible to know when you are being filmed and refuses to let kids become data extras.
- Ban applies at all education levels; city says urgent action needed while national government only formed an expert group.
- Ban effective Aug 27; announcement delayed due to political truce after King Harald V's death.
Norway’s capital Oslo said Thursday it had banned smart glasses in schools, saying the move was aimed at preventing children becoming “extras in Meta’s data collection”.
The ban applies throughout the entire school day and at all levels of education, the municipality said in a statement.
“We politicians must have the courage to be honest about what this is really about: one of the world’s richest companies has launched a product whose entire business idea is to make it impossible to know when you are being filmed,” Oslo’s Vice Mayor for Education Julie Remen Midtgarden said.
“In Oslo we refuse to let our children become extras in Meta’s data collection,” she said.
The conservative politician also slammed Norway’s left-wing government, which has said it had created an expert group as it mulled regulating such devices and the use of facial recognition in public.
“The glasses are being sold in Norway today, they are being used in Norwegian school playgrounds today, and the problem is here now. Looking into the issue is not taking action,” Midtgarden said.
Smart glasses allow the wearer to shoot photos and videos, listen to music, take phone calls, translate signs in a foreign language, project text or maps into the field of view, or interact with an integrated AI assistant.
Meta has reportedly developed a facial recognition feature ready to be integrated into its smart glasses.
The ban in Oslo’s schools went into effect on August 27, but the announcement was postponed until Thursday because of the political truce agreed by Norwegian parties following the death of King Harald V on 28 August.
