UK watchdog eyes Meta's smart glasses after workers say they 'see everything' Britain's privacy watchdog is asking questions about Meta's AI-powered smart glasses after reports that human contractors reviewing recordings from the devices were exposed to extremely private moments captured by unsuspecting users. Ray Ban Meta smart glasses showcasing technological innovation, positioned on retail display …
Rather than “concerning”, what about “bleedin’ obvious”? If you walk around all day pointing a camera and microphones at everything and everyone, then obviously you are going to record stuff that really shouldn’t be recorded
These things should be outright made illegal
Cameras, microphones, and - through the 'Neural Wrist Band' - they "read micro-gestures from your hand". The mind boggles.
But they're being marketed to people who feel they're at a "significant cognitive disadvantage" without them so maybe it's not bleedin obvious to the wearers.
You can try… but
1) Facebook will probably just drop the UK as it’s a fairly useless market now that they are no longer a gateway to Europe.
2) In Europe, only the UK is likely the o bother enforcing any law like that. Most cops in most European countries don’t want to waste their time with that. And in the UK, they would do it because then they get to file a report without having to lose a kg or two actually working.
3) EU sues a Silicon Valley mega company every year in cycles. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, probably NVidia and Tesla soon. This is how they find the government. I each behemoth sets aside a few billion to eventually pay to the EU after being sued where the punishment is “if you want permission to keep doing this, you have to pay us 3 billion Euro and publicly admit we won this war!”
Facebook is due for a big payout to the EU bureaucracy. That will buy them 3-5 years of freedom to do whatever they want.
Meta should be banned in the uk full stop!
this is a firm that feeds beauty ads to teen girls when they detect they are depressed & have fed suicide and depression comment to teen girls. A firm that makes $16 billion/year from known fraudulent ads & whose CEO when he found out that instagram was actually damaging to teen girls said "why doesn't Apple get this shit?!"
I've deleted facebook and instagram. trying to get my friends onto Threema....
“maybe it's not bleedin obvious to the wearers”
In that case, those users should be euthanised to take them out of the gene pool. The mind boggles. Every day in the tech press there seems to be yet another story along the lines of “bloody stupid people doing bloody stupid things that probably ought to be illegal anyway, are complaining about the consequences of the stupid things they are doing”. Arrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!
Don't worry, there will be a political show with concern/outrage and a month later nothing will have happened. I will say that if I was in a room with someone wearing these spy glasses, I'd leave. Much like if I was in a room with one of these billionaire aholes, I'm gone. The mere presence of these creatures is most unpleasant.
Sometimes you're not in a room that you can choose to immediately leave. Although other people found solutions to that situation
That's the problem I think. Like a lot of people I simply don't look closely enough at everyone in a room to know there's a pair of these there.
Maybe we could legislate to make them saleable only in hot pink, a shade reserved so no other glasses come in the colour. Knowing there's a pair about is half the battle.
Equally who are the completely clues idiots that use them.
With so much of the IoT and wearable crap it really does not add much value except for the people who want to show how up to date and on trend they are.
It is why we are in such a mess with privacy.
Well aren't you all pleasant people!
A lot of people using these are blind - they have small speakers in the arms and so a bind person can suddenly be able to read signs, know what's around them, call a family member if they feel confused or concerned.
But instead of reading a story like this and thinking "these tech companies should stick to the law" you just call for them to be illegal or worse, "euthanise" the users.
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Am I surprised the tech companies need a wrap on the knuckles? not at all but that doesn't mean we should ban innovation.
@ matjaggered:
You are using an emotional appreal, a think-of-the-children type argument, and are attempting to shame people who see the threat to privacy and freedom these devices pose, as "anti-handicapped".
There is no valid reason for a "handicapped-assistive device" to posess data-recording or data-fowarding features.
But these "glasses" have it all.
A lot of people using these are blind - sounds an awful lot like an unevidenced statement to me.
If I were blind, and needed an assistive device, I'd not buy it from Met and Rayban, and I'd not buy an assistive device that films everything around me and streams the data to the US for processing.
Also, if you're blind, you really don't need to be wearing glasses with a camera on them, the camera alone would suffice, wouldn't it? It's not like a blind person is likely to benefit from corrective lenses.
As it happens, I do know people who are registered blind, and I seriously doubt they'd use these. Yes, typically "blind" people do have some vision, but it's rarely something that corrective lenses is going to fix, for example, my friend who has no lenses in her eyes, after childhood surgery, doesn't wear glasses for some reason...
I can see a use for augmented reality that takes a nice camera feed, but it's really time the privacy laws in the UK were updated.
Recording, either as pictured or video should require consent, and it's beyond certain that permission must be required to upload someone else to social media.
The alternative is clout thirsty brainouts treating every interaction with anyone else as content. The works had changed since our laws were written, when being photographed in public mostly meant the background of someone's holiday snaps, not being targeted for monetized humiliation.
The UK does have consent laws re. taking photos and videos of people being taken in public and private. My father was an avid photographer and did many shoots with models, or weddings, or other social functions. He had to get consent at each session from either the individual models, or the gathering's organisers. He would still put up signs on tripods warning of photos and videos being taken at each event just to cover his arse if he accidentally caught something on camera that someone may not appreciate.
Policing said laws is nigh on impossible. Only after the event do such crimes come to light because the boys and girls in blue can't be everywhere.
There are also other problems when it comes to these glasses - national security. Having lived within throwing distance of the original Sterling Lines (look it up) there were signs aplenty about no photography allowed, etc. I knew of people who were taken into custody by the MOD police and had their cameras confiscated (back in the days before mobile phones), backgrounds checked, etc., especially if they weren't locals (trust me when I say the MOD "knows" it's locals and everything about them).
It should just be mandated that these things periodically emit a very loud shrill tone, followed by the words, "this device is recording".
In this case, I think "periodically" should be every ten seconds or so, and the speakers emitting the loud tone should point downwards at the wearer's ears.
The problem will mostly solve itself, although I'm willing to bet that there are still individuals out there who would be antisocial enough to wear them in public.
"The company said users can manage their data through device settings and delete recordings at any time."
Ah, yes. The usual Facebook tactic of shifting responsibility for their privacy-invading behaviour to their users under the guise of offering them control.
Such controls being intentionally complex, constantly-shifting and mysteriously always defaulting or reverting to "let us keep all your data", such that they know overwhelmed users will give up trying to keep on top of them.
MS-DOS (and PC-DOS, etc.) file systems flag files as "deleted" by overwriting the first character of the file name with a lower-case sigma character ("σ").
Norton Utilities, PC-Tools, and other similar software could, did, and do recover such files.
The security provided by a "deleted" flag is nil.
Then identified by facial recognition, tagged, tracked and surveilled via all Meta users. Meta will know who you are, where you are and what you were doing at all times, even if you've never signed up to any Meta products.
Yes, I call that an invasion of my privacy!
"No, you don't have any right to not be filmed when you are out in public. The key word that should give you a hint is "public"
Correct, but equally you DO have a right on how data is processed and how a 3rd party processes that data.
There have been legal precedents (in the US at least) where the Police argued that storing and using number plate images from Flock cameras didn't require a warrant, claiming that it's in public view.
The judge counted that individual images didn't violate laws and didn't require warrants, the combining of that data and building a profile from it did.
So in the case of Meta, if they aggregate facial scans from potentially thousands of images, they can build a profile of a person, or person....and that IS illegal.
This is true but glasses are not worn only in public. It's a grey area. But I don't think it's that straightforward. The glasses are a recording device and they have a light that cannot be disabled when recording. So it's like a smartphone and the owner should stop recording in private areas.
The problem is not "being filmed in public".
The problem is having that data combined with other data, via computer processing, quickly and cheaply, to form dossiers on people, which are sold on to busineses and governments, resulting in effectively a loss of freedom and effective control of one's government.
Disagree with your employer's political views? Better not be caught attending a speech by the "wrong" politician, or you may find yourself RA'd.
Disagree with the current government's policies? Better not attend a protest rally, because you will be mass-surveilled, processed, tracked, and flagged in the government's computers for special, extra-judicial, negative-result-for-you attention.
The Orange King over in the US, and his minions, "ICE"/Department of Homeland Security, already are doing this.
Pre-computerisation, all this would require expensive, tedious, manual labor. This friction largely-preserved peoples' general privacy in public.
Privacy laws and their effective enforcement have not kept up.
What would be infinitely better would be ensuring those in the content, owners or not, can delete content featuring themselves. Better yet, give folks an automatic right not to be filmed and enforce mandatory blurring of all who select it.
Or is facial rec not good enough for police use yet?
The usual idea is you are sufficiently close that you can do it in a darkened room. At least it was when I used to spread goatskins on the floor of my bothy for a little enticing luxury.
Perhaps today's yoof need an AI commentary or Clippy's advice
Reminds me of the photos that have been released from the Epstein files. What sort of person would think, "I am standing in my room in my tighty-whities, talking to a woman who's not a family member - yes, please take a photo of us both, this is definitely a Kodak moment that I'll treasure in years to come."?
Oh, right. Peter Mandelson.
Ah yes. Before I use any bathroom I always make sure I remove my glasses before I remove my trousers. If that's something I forget to do, that's ok because I always consider whether there's a mirror in view of the toilet itself and if so, simply stop needing the toilet and leave.
In a similar vein I've never changed clothes whilst wearing glasses, I just shut my eyes really tight and when I open them, I've got a ~90 second window where my visual impairment disappears so I can complete tasks like that without them.
If I did have to take them off, I'd make sure to leave them face down though, so the cameras were pointing at the table. My optician recommends that, states it's good for the lenses to get toughened on any surface - teaches them a lesson. Besides, I'm usually carrying my handy 4 foot by 4 foot glasses-vault so I can put them away nicely alongside my multiple pairs of prescription glasses I make sure are on my person at all times. It's hermetically sealed, lined like a faraday cage and has to be so big to both hold all my glasses *and* for the inches of soundproofing built in to it...
Before I use any bathroom I always make sure I remove my glasses before I remove my trousers
Very awkward for those of us that need them to be able to see more than 3cm in front of our noses. Yes, you can always sit down but, in a public loo, I'd rather not thankyouverymuch.
If you are like me and need to wear prescription glasses to get around, not walk into traffic etc, then wearing glasses ALL THE TIME is non-optional.
An extremely private moment could be someone being run over and killed.
It could be a mother breast-feeding her child. OK, she chose to do it in public, but probably would not have agreed to someone recording it.
There are degrees here.
I often wonder about when was the last time you could have a private conversation with someone. I mean really truly private with absolute certainty that nobody was listening.
Once, being in a large open field would be certainty enough. Now you can reason that nobody is *probably* listening, but you cannot know that they are not. I think that spoils life, even if just a little.
At least with these glasses you know 100% that someone IS listening - some poor sod in Kenya which is actually so bizarre when you think about it. It's someone job to catalogue every utterance so that future versions of AI can do it automatically.
The fact they have to look at your cock whilst they do it is just a cruelty.
I paid $5000 to willfully disregard the existence and privacy rights of others with my constant recording, not to embarrass myself in front of remote strangers being paid minimum wage to review footage! I bought these for a continuous vapid feeling of superiority in a society where the legal system near exclusively protects me and my absurd amounts of wealth required to so callously spend money on such nonsense, so I am free to surreptitiously record peasants at Starbucks all I want. I will not be made a fool!
I'm outraged that people are in a position to strap cameras to themselves that are not obviously cameras and then record interactions with me without my consent. Secretly filming people is in fact illegal in many jurisdictions, and unless you already knew that these things were cameras - which is not immediately obvious if you don't have the best eyesight yourself, they pretty much just look like thick ugly glasses - it could I think be very fairly argued that the things constitute covert surveillance devices of the type which it is in fact illegal to use to record someone without their consent in many parts of the world.
Certainly if someone came up to me with a go-pro strapped to their hat and asked if it was OK to record their conversation with me I would say no. If I saw someone doing that in a public space I would make a point of staying out of their way.
And really should not be a surprise. I'd expect Africans can be bought for less per hour than Indians. Race to the bottom. I imagine some of the conflict zones in Africa people can be bought for a few grains of rice and a 1/2L of water per day. And they'd never sell a private video for an extra L of water, right?
Regulator: Lemme see that inappropriate footage, pronto!
Meta: There it is
Regulator: Mmm... do you have some more of that filth you dirty boy?
Meta: There it is
Regulator: Naughty, naughty. We are going to slap your wrists!
Meta: Oh spank me daddy!!!
Regulator: Oh there are reports of some more unholy lewd stuff you've been secretly recording, send me everything now!
Meta: Uploading as we speak.
Regulator: Oh my good lord, I am going to choke you with this little fine.
Meta: Fine me harder! Make me make it rain!
etc...
Let's face it, recording everything and uploading to Meta HQ is CCTV surveillance, so why don't Meta glasses users need to display proper signage detailing the purpose of data collection, the data controller, and contact details of the Data Protection Officer.
They can put it just below the "Unclean - Meta user" placard they should be carrying.
MEMORANDUM - from Downing Street to the Director of the GCHQ, c.c. Home Secretary, Director of Public Prosecutions, Director of MI5, and Head of the NCA
Re: Meta's AI-powered smart glasses
The PM directs you to convene a meeting of senior officials relating to policing and national security in order to consider opportunities arising from the widespread introduction of 'smart glasses' in the UK. Response to the following matters is required.
1. The practicality and anticipated cost of contracting with Meta for the supply of their 'smart glasses' sufficient to equip all UK people between the ages of 10 years and 90 years with a pair of these spectacles.
2. The steps required to construct AI data centres equipped to handle real-time monitoring of all the spectacle wearers.
3. Formation of a cadre of enforcers for smart glasses wearing.
4. Circumstances in which an individual is exempted from wearing the glasses, e.g. when asleep after provably taking a state-issued narcotic.
5. Preliminary thoughts on how most of the population can simply be persuaded to wear the glasses, e.g. mileage in 'think of the children arguments'.
This is part complaint and part thinking out aloud ...
I know, the legal angle has already been mentioned, but would it be too much to ask for our politicians to get the hell off the arses and actually protect us people from the intrusive ravages of selfish, mostly-foreign technology companies and their equally selfish users, especially given where the information goes and how it can be used for profit and/or manipulation?
There's already precedent in that use of audio bugs and recording devices requires the explicit permission of those being recorded (law enforcement and security agencies aside). Recording audio and/or video with smart glasses or other wearable devices should be similar in any private or semi-private setting, such as bathrooms, toilets, cafes/restaurants, private vehicles, private homes, or within a few metres of any place where a person or persons normally gather to work or recreate (probably excluding sport, and there will be other obvious exceptions). CCTV usually captures a wide-angle, general view and doesn't usually capture audio but, in cases where it does either, it should also be caught by upgraded laws.
The same goes for facial recognition ... which is going to be an obvious feature of smart glasses. Perhaps technology-assisted facial recognition should be a strictly-licensed feature available only to government departments/agencies and certain 'protected establishments' like high-security factories, detention centres and so on. So if a shopping centre wants to implement AI cameras and/or facial recognition, they will need to implement it in such a way that only a licensed private security firm could use it, under strict safeguards and frequent audits, with stiff penalties for any improper use.
Such laws ought to stimulate policy and signage like, "this is a smart glass/recording-free area" and "smart glasses cannot be worn in this building", applicable to wide range of buildings, including shopping centres.
Perhaps we could also see a legally-mandated remote disable function built into smart glasses - where they respond to a broadcast command on entering a recording-free building or area and switch off recording.
They sprang apart. Winston’s entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia’s eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.
‘You are the dead,’ repeated the iron voice.
‘It was behind the picture,’ breathed Julia.
'No you bloody fool, you're wearing it!' said the iron voice.
