What’s driving me nuts is that people will focus on the glasses.
Yes, the glasses ARE a problem because Meta, despite being warned by experts like AccessNow to SHOW when a camera is recording, you know with a bright red LED as it’s been the case with others devices before, kept it “stealthy” because it’s… cool I guess?
Anyway, the glasses themselves are but the tip of the iceberg. They are the end of the surveillance apparatus that people WILLINGLY decide to contribute to. What do I mean? Well that people who are “shocked” by this kind of demonstrations (because that’s what it is, not actual revelations) will be whining about it on Thread or X after sending a WhatsApp message to their friends and sending GMail to someone else on their Google, I mean Android, phone and testing the latest version of ChatGPT. Maybe the worst part in all this? They paid to get a Google Nest inside their home and an Amazon Ring video doorbell outside. They ARE part of the surveillance.
Those people are FUELING surveillance capitalism by pouring their private data to large corporations earning money on their usage.
Come on… be shocked yes, be horrified yes, but don’t pretend that you are not part of the problem. You ARE wearing those “glasses” in other form daily, you are paying for it with money and usage. Stop and buy actual products, software and hardware, from companies who do not make money with ads, directly or indirectly. Make sure the products you use do NOT rely on “the cloud” and siphon all your data elsewhere, for profit. Change today.
Several states have anti-spying laws that require disclosure that you’re recording them. I expect we’ll see an uptick in lawsuits about this issue, which will force Meta to revise their device or will cause a chilling effect on their sales.
Source on that? Last I checked it was nationwide that there was no expectation to privacy in public places
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations
The info on that page is a little dated but mostly accurate (there’s still 11 states that require two-party consent for recording a conversation, for example). There’s other sources you can find.
I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk case against devices like this, but it’s not like it’s especially common for people to walk around with what are essentially covert cameras on their faces. It’s something for future courts to decide, and I could see an argument against them on these grounds.
Again, I’m NAL.
Yeah but the two party consent states for recording imply that it’s in a private location, there is nothing stopping anyone from recording someone in a public location.
It doesn’t matter what the Stateside law of indicates whether it’s public or private, it’s already been decided by the Supreme Court that recording in a public area is a protection that’s given under the First Amendment. This right to record has been challenged a few times by state representatives such as the 2007 case in Massachusetts where it went up to the first district appeals court, and back in 2021 in the Fraiser versus Evan’s case which went all the way up to the Supreme Court.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re in a public area there is no expectation of privacy so therefore anything goes, this protection generally includes someone standing in a private area recording an area that is considered a public area, and in some cases even include someone who is standing in a public area recording it supposed to private area due to lack of obstruction from that public area (such as someone standing on the street outside a house recording an unobstructed window)
But as you said IANAL
edit:
That being said, because I realize I forgot to add this to the post. I am super against the entire idea of AI based goggles that’s able to identify people in real time. That is such a violation of what should be basic privacy that honestly I think it’s too far
I hope these get litigated to death or else people feel peer pressure at being an asshole for buying them.
The future is getting a QR code tattooed on your forehead so the link bubble blocks your face, and machine learning thinks you’re an avocado. I’m getting mine done tomorrow.
What happens when QR codes are obsolete because some newer, smaller technology is in place?
Lol that has nothing to do with the other, and courts have already set precedent for recording in public spaces and have generally ruled that with current laws there’s no expectation of privacy in public spaces.
The fact the camera being on someones face is almost assuredly going to be an insignificant factor in any future court case considering the sheer amount of cameras pointing at you as-is from phones (How do you know if someone is just on their phone or recording?) and security cameras and now that businesses are heavily investing in ever more cameras for their AI BS…yea, sorry to say, but nothing is going to change on that front for the foreseeable future.
The fun thing is that with novel cases, the law can change. There’s currently no precedent for AI Camera Glasses, and the law(s) I cited were created before anything like this was even a real possibility for the average person.
And re: phones—you can see that’s a camera. Also, they have a bright LED that indicates recording. These glasses do not.
I get your cynicism, but we do not yet live in the dystopian plutocracy where companies get to do whatever they want with impunity (just a lot of it). Unless you’re a lawyer, I’m not inclined towards your opinion.
And re: phones—you can see that’s a camera. Also, they have a bright LED that indicates recording. These glasses do not.
Umm when was the last time you…you know what, let’s do an experiment, start recording a video on your phone, flip it over and look at the back and tell me where the red recording LED is LOL
Anyways, the other commenter here cited specific cases and a supreme court ruling which tied recording in a public space as a 1st amendment issue (which I didn’t know either) so now short of a new federal law passed by congress, it ain’t changing. It’s not my opinion, it’s a fact.
About the time some billionaire/politician/LEO/judge out other influential/affluent person is recorded in a compromising position.
I doubt it. They’ll flaunt the laws and demonstrate how corporations have become ungovernable.
I recently had to explain to my boomer mom why a Ring doorbell was a bad idea. She didn’t seem to get that the system is cheap because it’s constantly feeding whatever it sees to both Ring and your local cops.
Yeah but like everything in life, it’s a trade off. Most people cannot maintain their own home surveillance system without the help of a company like Amazon or Google. These people have to decide between no security cameras or security cameras with caveats. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize people who choose the latter. The unfortunate truth is maintaining a security system that works well is very difficult, time consuming and can be unreliable. Even most of the tech savvy people I know just end up paying a company like Amazon to do it.
Can the doxxing tech be used to ID law enforcement officers? A lot of them are assholes and bullies knowing their IDs will [be] protected by state and corporate interests.
And police in the US are more than eager to use facial recognition and ALPR services to bypass our fourth amendment protections.
Take a photo of a cop, upload it to the website, and find out.
Report back.deleted by creator
This is kind of the ironic catch of surveillance technology. There’s way less people in positions of power and authority that the tech can be used to surveil. Honestly the bourgeois is better far not advancing it and just using old fashioned violent coercion.
People lost their shit about Google Glass, claiming users would be able to take pics of them without their knowledge, yet they didn’t bat an eye at the established creepers doing that already with smartphones and they sure don’t seem to care much about Meta putting forth Glass 2.0, now with more invasiveness! An article about it is a good first step, but articles like this about Glass were everywhere, along with a general negative sentiment in the public (and there even were some assaults on people using those things!), yet I rarely hear about these even worse glasses. Do people just not care about privacy anymore?
Google Glass was way back in like 2013, 10 years later people just expect to have cameras everywhere in public since nearly everyone now has a good camera in their pocket that they’re also using to actually take pics and videos all the time of food, places, buildings, scenery, selfies etc.
Each one of us is probably in the background of who knows many peoples pictures by now
I think the problem lies in the underestimation of the potential for that level of personal data. The privacy counter-argument is usually “nothing to hide.” Psychographic profiling is the incredibly accurate practice of predicting an individual’s engagement based on previous choices, and is far more invasive than “telling secrets.”
They care, but Google Glass was a lot more obvious to the casual observer than these new smart glasses are.
I didn’t know these were a thing until just now
I feel like google glass was more bad timing, people weren’t as used to everyone and their dog carrying a camera all the time back then.
Do people just not care about privacy anymore?
Correct. Older people still do, but it’s 20 years later now and there are two generations of people who have never had privacy at any point of their lives. So they don’t understand what has been taken from them, and openly declare that they don’t care.
Personally, I also hadn’t even heard of these until now. Maybe they’re just not being marketed to the tech enthusiast crowd as we’re the sorta people who’d diss it for the privacy implication?
yet they didn’t bat an eye at the established creepers doing that already with smartphones
I don’t think anyone’s happy about that either, but the problem with Google Glass (and now even worse with the Facebook ones) is that they’re pretty damn subtle. You notice someone taking out their phone to take a photo of you, but just looking towards you with sunglasses on? Welllllll yeah.
Pretty sure this was described exactly in Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992).
Fucking gargoyles.
My first thought was Daemon by Daniel Suarez.
Oh man thank you so much for mentioning him! I’ve been struggling to remember a book of his that i read a while ago
Same. Could use a reread. What a great book.
When can i haz drone swarm?
This tech could easily work with any type of camera too, that’s a lot harder to identify than glasses with a light that turns on when its recording. Hidden cameras on pins, necklaces, clothing, etc.
What a world we live in
I think the biggest concern is how easy it is to do. Not everyone has a CIA surveillance pin.
not many people are likely to have one but tiny cameras in various forms are quite cheap.
I think they even have pen (like, writing pen) cameras that can fit inside a front pocket for pretty cheap.
Pretty sure China has this tech everywhere in their country
For its part, Meta cautions users against being glassholes in its privacy policy
Lol
Glassholes was coined back when Google was working on Google Glass about 10-12y ago and people kept theirs on and recording while in public
Only they are allowed to do that!!
Welp, guess it’s time for IR reflective tattoos to defeat facial recognition
So… Add high-contrast uniquely identifiable markings to yourself?
Seems counterproductive.
Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1105/
Full face tattoo and getting multiple people on board might do the trick for however long until additional markers are found for the edge case. I think clown makeup would do better since it varies day to day.
Yeah, and hard to change.
These anti mask people are crazy!
(Please. It’s a joke)
it can work if everyone does it. Unfortunately we can’t even do a boycott on a product properly so no chance for that to happen.
*glasses
The sad thing is, facial recognition glasses would be really useful to people like me with prosopagnosia (face blindness), but I would only want them if the processing is done locally on device.
As with most bleeding edge technology, all the danger comes from capitalism, and not the technology itself.
Surveillance society is a bad idea, period.
It would be also really useful to have a database of oil company executives and other shitty people that aren’t easy to recognize but worth refusing service etc.
Not sure if the trade offs are worth it. It means making up a database of all people. Maybe it could work if your friends and family agree to be in your local database, but not worth it if everyone needs to be in a massive database.
Correct me if I’m wrong but this isn’t doxing? It’s pulling already public info and not sharing it with the world.
Doxing is usually gathering already public info, but I agree if it’s not shared it’s not doxing.
I never understood doxxing laws. All the people do is compile publicly available data. How is it illegal in some places?
It’s because you’re gathering data to encourage others to use it for nefarious purposes. It’s not just innocently looking up their email or whatever.
If it is all publicly available, it should be legal to repackage and release the info. As long as there is no call to action.
I’m pretty sure intent is part of the laws that exist. If you’re just collating information, I don’t think there’s an issue. When you’re posting that information in a forum to identify the person and send people to harass them, that’s where you usually cross a line. It isn’t the gathering of information that’s important. It’s the intent to cause harm.
Aaahh, I want out of this dystopian timeline, I did not sign up for this!
The good news is that I have noticed a lot of people saying this. I think even the least tech savvy are starting to wake up.
Huh. Who saw this coming besides literally everyone?
That’s a great school project
Leave it to college kids to abuse the system
They didn’t release the code, and they did this project to warn us. Thats not abuse.
I really wanted these glasses but I don’t think people will be able to reverse engineer them anytime soon to take out the Meta part.
Photo caption: a woman smiling like a maniac,performing for a social media photo. Screenshot of television series Black Mirror, from an episode about social media dystopia
This is why I don’t use my real name on the internet, nor do I post selfies.
