National Councillors Back a Motion to Curb Covert Recording With AI Glasses

A cross-party group of National Councillors is pressing for tighter rules on camera-equipped AI glasses, 20 Minuten reported on October 17. SP National Councillor David Roth has filed a motion that would ban automated facial recognition in public spaces and prohibit using image and sound recordings of third parties to train AI systems. It would also lay the groundwork for banning people from wearing or carrying camera glasses in particularly sensitive places such as saunas, crèches and court buildings.

Roth argues the devices change everyday surveillance because recordings in progress are hard to notice, and that people are already having their personality rights violated by covert filming in bars, swimming pools and on the street. He also says recordings are exploited commercially, sent to servers abroad and in some cases reviewed by hand to train AI, which he says breaches data protection principles. Unlike Switzerland, he notes, the European Union regulates biometric recognition in public spaces strictly.

The motion has support across party lines, including from Jean-Luc Addor of the SVP, Stefan Müller-Altermatt of Die Mitte and Céline Weber of the GLP. Demand is rising quickly: online retailer Galaxus says it recently sold four times as many AI glasses as in the same period a year earlier, and Swiss bathing associations are recommending bans, the paper reported.

What it means in practice

Not everyone is convinced new law is needed. SVP National Councillor Barbara Steinemann told 20 Minuten the developments frighten her and play into the hands of voyeurs and criminals, but that existing personality rights and criminal provisions already apply in the digital world, and that many other devices can film just as easily. The debate adds to National Councillors’ warnings that AI could expose e-ID and patient records and feeds into the AI law consultation draft due in early 2027.

For businesses, the motion points to concrete obligations. Pools, saunas, childcare centres and courts could be asked to post and enforce no-glasses rules, while device makers might face the kind of import standards Roth says Switzerland needs. As Bern prepares its consultation draft, motions like this one signal which targeted rules Parliament wants covered, and biometric surveillance is now clearly on that list.

What to watch: the Federal Council’s formal reply to the motion, whether the National Council takes it up in a coming session, and whether pool and sauna operators move ahead with their own bans first.