# Ottawa tech worker builds app to detect nearby smart glasses > Source: > Published: 2026-08-17 11:00:00+00:00 Brazilian Canadian product and user experience (UX) designer Marcos Rezende has built a new privacy-focused mobile application with AI. Rezende previously worked at Microsoft and spends his days as a senior product designer at Kitchener-Waterloo event marketing platform Hive. He recently launched [NearLens](https://nearlens.app) on the side to help iPhone users navigate a world where smart glasses with cameras are becoming increasingly present and hard to spot. Rezende’s free iOS app listens for Bluetooth signals associated with camera-equipped eyewear, and tracks matches in real time. In an interview with *BetaKit*, Ottawa-based Rezende said NearLens’ focus is to give its users a signal that they are in the vicinity of camera glasses, such as Ray-Ban Meta, that could be actively recording. Rezende’s free iOS app listens for Bluetooth signals associated with camera-equipped eyewear, and tracks matches in real time. As [ App Developer Magazine](https://appdevelopermagazine.com/nearlens:-smart-glasses-privacy-taken-seriously/) put it, NearLens is “a practical response to a growing gap in how smart glasses affect everyday privacy.” Camera-equipped smart glasses, and their ability to fairly easily record others without their knowledge, have spurred [backlash](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2026/08/13/the-smart-glasses-backlash-01036331) and present [new challenges](https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/canadian-law-faces-a-new-challenge-from-smart-glasses-what-happens-if-someone-records-you/) under Canadian privacy law. For his part, Rezende has taken care to ensure that NearLens does not create new privacy concerns of its own. [A NearLens post](https://nearlens.app/press) claims the app does not access cameras or microphones, identify wearers, or confirm if glasses are capturing photographs and footage. Rezende said he has done this “to guarantee privacy end-to-end.” Rezende shipped the first version of NearLens with the help of AI tools after 328 software commits in two weeks. He said the idea came out of a postgraduate project at Lisbon’s IADE. NearLens has “no backend at all,” does not require accounts, compile analytics, or leverage any third-party software development kits, and runs using on-device AI where available. **RELATED: Google reportedly close to buying Canada’s AdHawk for its eye-tracking smart glasses tech** Rezende also plans to keep NearLens free. He sees the app as a temporary solution until society determines where it wants to allow these devices, and how it plans to approach them. For its part, Meta [recently said](https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-smart-glasses-daily-usage-tripled-year-over-year/) daily usage of its smart glasses tripled year-over-year. Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the wearable eyewear as “one of the fastest-growing categories of consumer electronics ever.” Rezende recently put NearLens to the test in four different locations to get a sense of how common they actually are at the moment. At Ottawa’s TD Place Arena, his app detected 15 signals consistent with camera-equipped smart glasses among 7,000 people over three hours. Whereas at the city’s Meridian Theatres, it returned zero matches. A recent *Business of Fashion*-McKinsey report singled out smart glasses as [poised for growth](https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/the-state-of-fashion-2026-report-smart-glasses-ai-wearables/) in 2026, when analysts project sales to quadruple thanks to a bevy of sleeker, cheaper options. *With files from Jesse Cole.* *Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Redd Francisco.*