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Norway Weighs Ban on Public Facial Recognition in Smart Glasses, Not a Sales Halt

September 2, 2026 at 19:07 EDT

Policy & Regulation
Security

Norway’s digitalisation minister is considering a ban on using smart glasses and similar wearables to identify strangers by face in public, while declining, for now, to outlaw the devices themselves — even as the national privacy regulator and consumer watchdog have urged shops to stop selling them.

25 Aug 2026 · Norway

Ban the face match, not the frames

Digitalisation Minister Karianne Tung is weighing a ban on facial recognition of strangers in public. The glasses themselves would stay legal; an expert group will draft options this autumn.

What is on the table

Function

Public face ID of other people may be banned

Device

Owning or wearing smart glasses is not the target

Sales

Watchdog wants a pause; no freeze decided

Policy path

Watchdogs warn

Datatilsynet and Forbrukerradet urge a sales pause while rules lag.

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Minister narrows aim

Ban face matching of others in public, not the hardware.

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Experts this autumn

A new group will propose rules for glasses, earbuds and caps.

Support

Consumer advocates welcome a public face-ID ban and want shops to stop selling until the law is clear.

Limits

A feature ban would not stop covert filming. Accessibility groups note the glasses can help people with visual impairment. An EEA-legal sales freeze is untested.

Context

Unreleased NameTag face-matching code was found in Meta’s AI app, which has been downloaded more than 50 million times.

Meta later removed the code and said no final decision had been made. Norway’s EU AI Act rules on biometrics are not yet in national law.

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