Meta smart glasses quietly enter Florida law enforcement

Two Florida sheriff’s offices have purchased Meta smart glasse, but the public record provides sharply different accounts of why they were acquired.

In Broward County, the glasses were purchased for an undercover unit investigating internet crimes against children, but the sheriff’s office has declined to explain whether or how they are used. In Okeechobee County, officials say the devices are simply a hands-free IT support tool that lets technicians troubleshoot equipment remotely.

Public records obtained by surveillance researcher Dave Maass and first reported by Miami New Times show two Florida sheriff’s offices purchasing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses through Amazon, but with strikingly different levels of transparency about how the devices are used.

The released records do not describe a statewide program or formal partnership with Meta. They show how consumer equipment capable of taking photographs, recording audio and video, and transmitting a wearer’s view can be acquired by law enforcement agencies with the rules governing its use disclosed unevenly from one office to another.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office purchased several pairs of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses from Amazon in May 2025 for its undercover Internet Crimes Against Children unit, according to the records and the agency’s response reported by the New Times.

The unit investigates technology-facilitated child exploitation, work that can include undercover online activity.

That lack of transparency is what distinguishes Broward’s purchase from Okeechobee’s. While both agencies bought the same consumer technology, only one has explained how it is used.

Broward spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright declined to explain their operational use, citing a Florida public records exemption for information that would reveal law enforcement surveillance techniques or procedures. She also declined to provide a policy governing the devices.

That response leaves important distinctions unresolved. The published records do not establish whether Broward personnel use the glasses to record evidence, transmit a live view to another investigator, document undercover activity hands-free or perform some narrower task.

They also do not show when recording is permitted, who can access any resulting files, where those files are stored or how long they are retained.

The lack of an answer is not evidence that Broward deputies are secretly recording the public, and the released records do not show the office using facial recognition through the glasses. They establish only that the agency bought consumer smart glasses for an undercover investigative unit and declined to disclose further operational details.

The exemption cited by Broward appears in Florida’s public records law, which makes information revealing surveillance techniques, procedures or personnel exempt from disclosure.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office’s reliance on it has left the public unable to determine whether the office treats the glasses as a specialized surveillance device, a communications tool or a body-worn camera.

When smart glasses become police equipment

Florida law defines a body camera broadly as a portable electronic recording device worn on an officer’s person that records audio and video of law enforcement-related encounters and activities.

Agencies that permit officers to wear body cameras must adopt policies covering proper use, maintenance, data storage, authorized users, limits on what may be recorded, officer access to footage, and the release and retention of recordings.

The statute does not name smart glasses. If Broward Sheriff’s Office law enforcement officers wear the glasses to record audio and video of law enforcement-related encounters, however, the devices could meet that functional definition.

No reported Florida decision appears to have applied the statute specifically to smart glasses, and the available records do not show whether the Broward Sheriff’s Office has made that determination or whether an existing body-camera policy applies.

The office has not disclosed whether its glasses are paired with agency-controlled phones or accounts, whether captured files enter an official evidence management system, or whether recording functions are enabled at all.

Okeechobee County has provided a much more specific account. Its sheriff’s office bought six pairs of Meta smart glasses in October 2024 for its IT division.

Spokesperson Jack Nash told New Times that the glasses are used for “remote troubleshooting” across approximately eight county locations.

He said the devices give one technician a live view of another technician’s work, allowing the second employee to help without traveling to the site.

In practice, a technician can wear the glasses while working on a technical problem, allowing a colleague elsewhere to see the work from the wearer’s perspective. It’s the only use the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office has disclosed is internal technical support.

The records underlying that disclosure provide additional limits. In September 2025, Maass requested purchasing documents, policies, training materials and sample videos associated with Okeechobee’s glasses.

The sheriff’s office initially said it had no responsive records. After Maass supplied a purchase order number and date drawn from procurement data, the office located and released an Amazon invoice, purchase order and requisition.

The records manager said the agency had no responsive policies, directives, presentations or training documents. For the requested video files, he reported that the IT division had advised that the glasses were “not saving or creating any video recordings.”

That statement is consistent with the office’s description of the devices as a live remote-assistance tool, although the released materials do not identify the software, accounts or security settings used for the connection.

Records contain no evidence that either sheriff’s offices are using the glasses for facial recognition, automated identification or routine patrol recording, and they do not describe a coordinated Florida rollout.

What is documented is limited to two local purchases and two agency accounts, one detailed and one deliberately restricted.

The records illustrate an emerging governance challenge. Consumer wearables capable of recording, livestreaming and transmitting a user’s point of view are becoming inexpensive, widely available policing tools, yet policies governing their use appear to vary significantly from one agency to another. In one Florida county, Meta smart glasses are treated as an internal IT tool. In another, they have entered undercover policing with little public explanation of how the technology is used or governed.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  Florida  |  law enforcement  |  Meta glasses  |  smart glasses  |  wearables