A criminal investigation is under way in the French capital over alleged harassment that prosecutors say involved camera-equipped frames. Reuters reported the move on September 18.

The probe follows complaints that wearers filmed women without consent and posted the footage to social media. Officials did not name a brand or company when asked about the case.

Separately, the country’s privacy regulator CNIL has logged fewer than 10 complaints tied to the frames in offices.

The case lands in a market that scaled fast. Counterpoint puts AI-equipped frames at 88 percent of sector shipments in the second half of last year, with Meta alone holding more than 80 percent of global volumes. Meta and EssilorLuxottica sold over 7 million AI pairs last year, and the partners have reportedly weighed doubling output to at least 20 million this year.

That growth has run ahead of public comfort. Videos of men approaching unsuspecting women while wearing the frames have spread online, and some owners defeated the recording indicator light. Meta has since patched that behavior, though many users still say the light is hard to read.

The backlash has pushed British cinemas to weigh bans and drawn a complaint from a German consumer group. France turns the argument into an active criminal matter rather than a debate about etiquette.

Source: Silicon Republic