LHC Summons Top Officials Over Unregulated Sale Of Smart Glasses

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ordered the federal interior and commerce secretaries, the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue and the member customs to appear in person on October 15, after they failed to answer a petition against the unregulated import and sale of smart glasses fitted with cameras and microphones.

Chief Justice Aalia Neelum took up the petition on Thursday with a deputy attorney general and representatives of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) present. Told that notices had been sent to the other respondents and no reply received, she summoned their heads. The telecom regulator was given until the next hearing to file its response.

The petition was filed in the public interest by a citizen, Husnainul Abideen, through Advocate Shahram Saqi. He says the glasses made by Meta are not officially sold in Pakistan, yet are openly available online and in Lahore’s shops, including at Hafeez Centre.

His objection is to what they can do unnoticed. The devices look like ordinary spectacles but can photograph, record and live-stream anyone in the wearer’s line of sight. He has asked the court to declare their unrestricted use incompatible with the Constitution.

The petition leans on foreign precedent. It cites concerns raised by data protection regulators in Ireland, Italy and Germany, and bans on smart glasses in courtrooms in England and Wales and in New York.

The case arrives at a pointed moment for the court itself. Only days ago the High Court banned filming, photography and TikTok videos on its own premises, with phones liable to confiscation. A rule written for handsets is easily defeated by a camera that sits on the bridge of the nose.

It also lands amid a wider turn towards surveillance. Sindh’s police chief said that future policing will rest on AI and electronic surveillance, and Punjab’s camera network now reaches every district. The petition asks the mirror-image question that what happens when the watching is done by private citizens with no rules at all.

The absence of four federal respondents is telling. Import policy belongs to commerce, clearance to customs and the revenue board, and criminal misuse to the interior ministry and the cybercrime agency. A product that touches all of them appears to have been regulated by none.

Nothing has been decided. The court has not ruled on whether the glasses are lawful, and sellers have not yet been heard. The hearing on October 15 will show whether the government has a position.