Smart, pervasive Augmented Reality (AR) glasses are making their way out of the research labs. Many big tech companies are working on developing these promising next-generation interaction devices, and apps and services around them. When integrated with emerging face recognition technologies (FRT), Pervasive AR glasses can become powerful everyday tools. However, little is known about their acceptance, perceptual, and ethical ramifications. To address this, we developed a Pervasive AR technology probe with functional FRT and conducted an empirical study with 54 participants in a public environment. We collected interview data regarding perceived ethics about combining Pervasive AR with FRT. We developed five dominant themes informing the potential concerns and characteristics. Based on those findings, we propose to develop future Pervasive AR systems around principles of symmetry and consent—what we call a Kantian approach. We hope that our research will inform the design and development of near-future smart glasses.

Pervasive Augmented Reality, as a context-aware and ubiquitous technology, captures and scans a user's environment to create and tailor augmentations for the user. We assume that Pervasive AR will not only be commonplace in recognising the general environment of a user but also include the identification of people in its context by way of face recognition. While there is a body of research addressing privacy issues with Pervasive AR technology and face recognition individually, less is known about the implications of the asymmetry of information availability and agency on users' perceptions, acceptability, and ethical concerns. In addition, little is known about potential social behaviour changes due to those aspects. We exposed 50 participants to a purpose-developed Pervasive AR technology probe and explored the ethical and social implications of the experience. Our findings show that Pervasive AR, in combination with face recognition and asymmetric information delivery, can lead to skewed social interactions with consequences that affect users' sense of control, agency, and identity. Furthermore, this exploration raises questions about technology acceptability in general when bringing together emerging technologies, like AR and face recognition, as queried here.