The Guardian: how AI glasses and smart cameras normalize surveillance on social media

The Guardian: how AI glasses and smart cameras normalize surveillance in social media

Guardian columnist Maggie Zhou published a column on July 7, 2026 about how tech companies are marketing AI glasses as a fashionable and desirable accessory to soften the entry of surveillance technologies into the mainstream — and gave the example of British fashion personality Alexa Chung, who showed her outfits through footage from home security cameras to 6 million Instagram followers.

What the Guardian columnist writes

Maggie Zhou calls her column "Indecent proposal" and argues that rebranding surveillance technologies in social media normalizes harassment and filming without consent.

"By selling AI glasses as a desirable, stylish and fashionable accessory, tech elites are trying to soften their penetration into the mainstream world," —

Maggie Zhou, Guardian columnist.

The author of the column admits that she usually tends to dismiss social media trends as empty and frivolous, ignoring the alarming undertones — until she saw a specific example that made her pay closer attention. In her headline, she directly links this rebranding of surveillance technologies with two specific consequences — the normalization of harassment and filming without consent, which, in her opinion, are presented to society as innocuous lifestyle content.

The Alexa Chung example

British fashion personality Alexa Chung provided an example of such normalization in an Instagram carousel that was seen by her 6 million followers: in screenshots from her home security camera, she demonstrated different outfits as she entered and exited her own home.

• Alexa Chung — British fashion personality, post audience — 6 million Instagram followers
• The carousel showed outfits through frames from a home security camera at entry and exit from the house
• Singer Rita Ora left a comment under the post "Good angle keep this series going"
• Ring security camera manufacturer commented on the post with "Fit checks on Ring cam? Next level"
• Maggie Zhou's column was published in The Guardian on July 7, 2026

"Good angle keep this series going" —

Rita Ora, in a comment on an Instagram post.

Zhou describes Chung's post as a counterculture response to the usual outfit photo at the iPhone mirror: the deliberate simplicity of security camera frames against the backdrop of a feed of "curated noise" seemed to her intimate and as if accidental. This reaction itself — the perception of surveillance as something warm and personal, rather than alarming — is, in the columnist's view, the mechanism by which the industry prepares the ground for everyday wearing of AI glasses.

What this means

The example shows how everyday surveillance technologies — security cameras, and then AI glasses — through fashion and lifestyle content are turning into a neutral and even attractive way of life, even though in essence they remain instruments of constant observation of a person without their explicit consent.