United Kingdom, Aug. 25 -- Meta appears to be developing a "kill switch" for its smart glasses that could physically disable their cameras and other sensors.

A patent filed by the tech giant earlier this year and granted last week describes a "hardware privacy mute circuit" for consumer devices, including augmented reality glasses.

Although the patent does not specifically name Meta's smart glasses, its illustrations closely resemble the company's current products.

The system would allow one or more sensors to be switched off directly through the hardware.

Meta says this would create "tamper-resistant privacy controls" that could not be bypassed through software exploits.

That could make the glasses physically incapable of recording ...