Southwest Airlines has issued a new memo to employees banning the use of smart glasses – as well as all other wearable technologies with the ability to recrd – during work hours, according to Skift.
- They cannot be used by employees, on or off premises
- Wireless earbuds with the ability to recording are specifically included in the policy. (I’m not sure what ‘earbuds that record’ even are.
According to a spokesperson for the airline, this policy applies to employees and does not apply to passengers.
We updated our policy [Thursday] for all employees — corporate and frontline — regarding smart glasses in the workplace. It does not apply in any way to customers.
According to the memo,
At Southwest, Safety and respect for personal privacy are foundational to how we work together and serve our Customers. With new wearable technology becoming more common, we’re introducing a new Smart Glasses and Wearable Recording Devices policy. This policy ensures clarity and consistency across the Company and supports our legal, Safety, and operational responsibilities.
Delta already bans smart glasses ‘unless issued by the airline’ (and I do not believe they have yet issued any).
Passengers can still record, within certain limits, but generally speaking passenger recording is allowed. Of course flight attendants still have their phones, they just can’t surreptitiously record using wearables. We don’t often see flight attendants taking photos and videos of unruly or strange customers! And of course that wouldn’t go over well if they did.
Airlines aren’t going to want employees taking photos and videos of passengers – including minors – or payment information, IDs, coworkers and passengers in airport restrooms, to name just a few. There’s legal risk, and there’s also reputational risk. Fairness and reciprocity is one thing, customers won’t feel customer buying travel from an airline whose staff are recording them even if other customers are recording them.
I do wonder, though, why not – what precipitated this – and whether there was a specific incident that served as the catalyst for the policy.
We really have just given up on privacy and consumer protections haven’t we? Like, friends, fellow citizens, human beings, we probably should take it easy on all the 24/7 surveillance state stuff. Feeling more and more like CCP over here and/or Orwell. Maybe the Europeans are onto something, reigning in big tech…
Apple AirPods can be used to eavesdrop you can leave your phone in a room and then use your AirPods to listen as to what’s going on in the room. I don’t believe that you can record though so I’m not sure what they mean about recording. I haven’t examined that commands that closely.
Earbuds work through the phone, might be an app recording what the mic picks up. I’m not sure whether any current phones tolerate such recording, though, due to possible malicious misuse.
Legally, so long as you’re in a one party state I think it’s permitted.
Flight attendants from all US airlines seem to vlog as a way to earn extra cash but I don’t see any of them recording passengers or usually fellow employees. Generally I find their videos boring.
When you say, “They cannot be used by employees, on or off premises,” it actually states that they may not be worn during working hours or while performing job duties — whether on or off company premises.
Hey, Gary, uh, is travel gonna be kinda messy, you know, like, because Mr. “nO nEw WaRs” just started another one? Yeah, between the pre-existing one (Russia-Ukraine), this one (Iran-Israel), and I guess Afghanistan-Pakistan are having a go, that’s a real bottleneck for flights between east and west. Like, Turkey-Caucasus-Stans and the Gulf just became… more challenging. ME3 gonna have go take longer routes, too. I get it, this is a SW bash-workers post, but, when ya get to it, maybe some analysis on how WW3 affects our ‘hobby’, pretty please… *sigh*
Gary Leff writes, “I do wonder, though, why not – what precipitated this – and whether there was a specific incident that served as the catalyst for the policy.” I think Southwest Airlines’ policy banning its employees from using smart glasses is intended to prevent C-suite executives from appearing in embarrassing viral videos filmed in crew break rooms at hub airports. An airline’s reputation can tank quickly when a C-suite executive becomes a TikTok sensation for antics like doing the worm or having sex next to the coffee machine. For context, this is the same airline that once promoted its short, affordable flights as “quickies”—because nothing says professional like a wink and a nudge from your marketing team.
’tis far better to blame and fire an employee than to prove a passenger or customer lied..”
corporations prefer paying customers to paid labor.
Gary Leff writes, “I do wonder, though, why not – what precipitated this – and whether there was a specific incident that served as the catalyst for the policy.”
A wise, wise man, Joe Brancatelli once said, “all security is reactive”. So you can be assured its in direct response to some sort of incident, just not made public!
“Here’s What Don’t They Want…”
Seems strange to ban smart glasses at work. What do you think they’re trying to hide?
Taking into consideration the sometimes odd behavior of Airline Passengers these days, I would think a recording of the events could prove very helpful. Customer Contact Employees have been attacked in all sorts of ways and if a Passenger thinks they can make some money, they will not think twice about bending the truth of what really occurred.