US Air Force bans use of smart glasses among its troops — earbuds and other Bluetooth devices limited to official duties

The U.S. Air Force has banned the use of smart glasses for all its personnel, and it also limited the use of earphones and other Bluetooth devices while in uniform for official duties. According to its dress and personal appearance policy announcement, “It is unauthorized to wear mirrored lenses or smart glasses with photo, video, or artificial intelligence capabilities while in uniform.” Furthermore, the use of earbuds — specifically earpieces, headphones, or any Bluetooth wireless technology — is now limited to personnel who have been authorized for official duties.

The announcement did not give the reason why these gadgets were banned from use while in uniform, except saying that it was “designed to uphold military professionalism” and to support “a more effective and mission-ready force.” However, while not specifically mentioned, there’s also the fact that smart glasses often record photos and videos automatically, which are then uploaded to the cloud. This is a nightmare situation for operational security, as it could unintentionally reveal sensitive information, especially for those working at or near top secret bases.

Aside from that, it also prohibited uniformed personnel from using earbuds, both wired and wireless, unless authorized to do so for official duties. The ban even extended to using personal electronic media devices, including earpieces, speaker phones, or text messaging, while walking, unless in an emergency or as part of necessary official notifications. Nevertheless, the regulation introduced a couple of exemptions — uniformed personnel can use them while traveling on public transport or while wearing physical training gear during individual or personnel fitness training.

Public tracking technology has long been a problem for military forces. This first came to light in 2018, when exercise apps, like Strava and Polar, started showing where their users were taking their runs. This unintentionally revealed the location and layout of several U.S. bases — even the secret ones. Even though the users remained anonymous, jogging paths that seemingly appeared out of nowhere indicated that there was an installation there. Matching the publicly available exercise data makes it so much easier to confirm open-source intelligence, increasing the base’s operational risks.

Smart glasses are seemingly becoming a significant threat, too, especially as they have become more subtle and sophisticated. For example, Tom’s Hardware’s review of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses show that they look like a perfectly normal pair of glasses, but still have the ability to capture what the user sees and hears. And while the Ray-Bans have a white LED light on the frame to indicate that they are recording, some users were able to deactivate it. This meant that they can be used for secretly recording.

This threat also extends beyond bad actors within the U.S. Air Force. The service currently has over 300,000 active-duty personnel — so, even if just 1% of them use smart glasses, that’s 3,000 smart devices that need to be monitored and hardened against cyberattacks. So, to make things simple, it just decided to completely ban the smart devices for those in uniform.

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