Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns

https://www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/metas-ai-smart-glasses-and-data-privacy-concerns-workers-say-we-see-everything

by sandbach • 5 months ago

1448 771 5 months ago

svd.se

Havoc• 5 months ago

Brought to you by the CEO that tapes the webcam on his laptop

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck...

bigyabai5• 5 months ago

I will be genuinely shocked if people aren't taping their smartphone cameras by 2030.

ge96• 5 months ago

It is funny since I wonder when you're looking through say the Google Feed (swipe left on Android devices on home screen) does the camera track your eyes, what you're looking at

It does seem harder to tape the phone camera since the in/out motion into your pocket I imagine would remove the tape.

lnrd3• 5 months ago

Cameras in phones are pretty much locked up today, assuming you have an updated version of the OS from a respectable manufacturer. Apps will not be able to access the camera feed (or the microphone) without explicit consent and a visual warning.

The manufacturer might access it, Apple states they don't, Google and Samsung I'm not sure. A bad actor with 0days might too.

numpad03• 5 months ago

Laser engravers. Blu-ray drive laser modules are dime a dozen and are plenty powerful.

tdeck4• 5 months ago

It's harder to tape it when it's now a small island in the screen.

pimlottc• 5 months ago

To be clear, he /puts tape over/ his webcam, that's very different from /taping/ (recording) the output of his webcam.

boc• 5 months ago

Nominating this as the "most HN" comment of the year.

xoxxala• 5 months ago

Tape?! Tape is sooo 2016.

I 3d printed a flap for my webcam.

sschueller2• 5 months ago

Of course, why wouldn't they? They do not work without a meta account. /s

Is anyone at meta going to be bald accountable?

An absolute privacy nightmare especially in places like Switzerland or Germany where recording people (subject focus) even in public is not permitted without consent but you have tourists now showing up everywhere wearing these.

The LED is barely visible during the day and some have modified their glasses to disable/remove it.

aucisson_masque3• 5 months ago

An absolute privacy nightmare especially in places like Switzerland or Germany where recording people (subject focus) even in public is not permitted

That's the prime example of a law that can't be enforced and thus shouldn't exist. You go in town, you can be recorded inadvertantly, as long as it's not some creep stalking you, I say it's fine.

sschueller2• 5 months ago

It can and is enforced. Again it's if the person is the focus of your video.

If you post a video online of someone's worst day which you decided to film for entertainment, they can legally go after you.

msy3• 5 months ago

I suspect what'll kill these is the same thing that kill google glass - social ostracisation. It's so, so wildly adversarial to effectively shove a recording device in the face of everyone you're interacting with you might as well wear a emergency orange t-shirt with 'verified asshole' written on it.

aardvarkr• 5 months ago

They look like any other pair of sunglasses. No piece of glass over one eye reminding everyone you meet that you’re wearing a camera. They’re incredibly stealthy

darrylb42• 5 months ago

Unlike google glass they don't look weird. Unless you know what to look for you will probably just think they are ray bans.

RajT88• 5 months ago

Is anyone at meta going to be bald accountable?

They haven't yet. Don't see why now.

autoexec6• 5 months ago

If they are held accountable they'll get a slap on the wrist and pay a fine to the government or maybe throw a few more pennies at a class action, but none of it will come close to the amount they made in profit and it won't prevent meta or Kenyan contractors from having gotten off on your nudes.

unselect59173• 5 months ago

"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."

-Mark Zuckerberg, 2004

webdevver2• 5 months ago

oh come on, who of us didn't go through a power-tripping edge lord phase? i too had a community game server once...

xmx983• 5 months ago

It seems his values aren’t much better now. Too bad his company is so successful.

wewtyflakes3• 5 months ago

Because we should hold the most powerful people to the highest standard, not the lowest one.

medi8r6• 5 months ago

"phase"

msy3• 5 months ago

You would have to have been hiding under an extremely large rock not to assume this given the technology involved and Meta's overtly and consistently anti-privacy stances and history.

argomo• 5 months ago

While true, that doesn't make it acceptable. In a functioning society, companies would be punished harshly for this behaviour.

Aeolun4• 5 months ago

In a functioning society

Have you been alive for the past decade?

autoexec6• 5 months ago

It's because they never have been meaningfully punished and won't be that this happens and will continue to happen. Act accordingly.

latentsea• 5 months ago

all societies are dysfunctional...

http-teapot3• 5 months ago

[inserts image of a smiling Mark Zuckerberg walking in the middle of unsuspecting attendees wearing VR headsets]

That image always felt dystopian to me

xmx983• 5 months ago

Of course! Glasses with cameras are a classic secret spy gadget :)

majestik• 5 months ago

Is anyone here actually surprised Meta is recording and reviewing their content?

Vote with your dollars people.

dataflow5• 5 months ago

Yes, I'm surprised at this. I would've never expected they would be doing this, and I didn't exactly have high expectations of Meta. This is incredibly invasive and not at all what people expect.

Aeolun4• 5 months ago

Am I so cynical, or does this sound hopelessly naive? This is exactly what I would expect. Certainly of Meta. Amazon had to go out of their way to reassure people that Siri wasn’t always recording. And I’m still not entirely sure I believe that.

financetechbro• 5 months ago

I’m not sure what sort of signals you’ve gotten from Meta that would suggest they are above this type of behavior?

autoexec6• 5 months ago

Yeah, this is something you 100% should have expected. This could not be more on brand for facebook. Even if someone told me facebook wasn't using their glasses to invade the privacy of their users I wouldn't believe them. Compromising people's privacy for profit is what facebook does. Violating the trust of their users is basically all facebook has ever done.

tombert2• 5 months ago

I deleted my Facebook eleven years ago. I wish I could say it was for some cool reason about privacy concerns and whatnot, but honestly it's because I was spending way too much time arguing with people I barely knew, and I figured that that's not healthy.

I missed Facebook for about a day, and after that I barely even thought about it. In 2021 I bought an Oculus Quest 2, which at the time required a Facebook account so I made a throwaway one, but other than that I haven't been on Facebook (and I haven't even touched my Quest 2 in three years).

Point being, it's really not hard to get off Facebook and to ditch Meta products. More people should delete it.

ClikeX2• 5 months ago

I don't actively use Facebook and I block most(?) of the tracking, but I do have an account simply because most of the information about my area is on there. This means events, safety updates, second hand shit.

unselect59173• 5 months ago

My policy for years with facebook has been "post, don't scroll". I also use the brave broswer, ublock origin, and fb-purity extension. It's a tiny thing, and petty but it's better than being facebook's product for their advertising customers.

theshackleford• 5 months ago

Point being, it's really not hard to get off Facebook and to ditch Meta products. More people should delete it.

As another poster mentioned, it can in fact be more difficult. Almost all of my social clubs/groups over the years migrated away from websites/forums to FaceBook. I could give up an account, at the cost of losing effectively my entire social calendar.

I have a generic account with no real user data, but they still get all my content from the social groups so they still win I suppose.

My point ultimately I guess is that I have chosen the ability to continue to have a strong social life over my zuck hating principles.

com2kid• 5 months ago

When you buy them and set them up you are told this many times. The onboarding screams at you that everything you do is used for training AI.

Maybe this changed since I set mine up, but I felt so damn informed I was getting tired of tapping I understand.

drnick13• 5 months ago

Yes, and this is a good start:

https://github.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists?tab=readme-ov-file#...

Among others, blocks Meta/Facebook/Google/Apple trackers and ads. Every router on the planet should run this.

subarctic• 5 months ago

There's plenty of people that don't own these smart glasses, as far as i know it's still only early adopters using them but i guess i could be wrong. The nice thing is you actually can vote with your feet here because there's no network effects, whereas there's tons of people that are stuck being on facebook or instagram because of everyone else that's on there.

Gnadgnad3• 5 months ago

Your dollars don't matter. They get so much state funding that this is just how the future is going to be. You'll like it.

yogorenapan• 5 months ago

The annoying thing is that even if you yourself don't use these glasses, as long as people around you do, you are still affected by it. We really need laws to limit always-on recording devices in places where we have an expectation of privacy.

hollow-moe• 5 months ago

"But it's the public space you can't expect any kind of privacy there, if you don't want private companies to do biometrics on your face from a rando glasses just don't go out :)" The open air panopticon, where every inmate is also the warden, gov salivates at the idea. (yes, yes, you're very smart, you, the reader: smartphones are already tracking and recording us everywhere. One more device, one more case isn't an issue anymore. So let's just keep adding them instead of trying to address them.)

xmx983• 5 months ago

I heard that in Japan phones have an audible shutter sound. Not mandated by law. Though I think that having this in the law is very reasonable. Maybe EU can step up. Taking photos is more fun with the sound too.

dangus2• 5 months ago

It’s not one law but it’s essentially a collaborative result of ordinances, manufacturers, and telecom carriers.

https://japandaily.jp/why-you-cant-turn-off-the-camera-shutt...

lnrd3• 5 months ago

We need laws and social norms where filming a stranger and uploading it online is considered a serious unacceptable offense regardless of the device. I find it absurd that today is completely acceptable to just film an unaware stranger and put the video online, especially since that the majority of the videos are about making fun of them or humiliate them.

leptons7• 5 months ago

the majority of the videos are about making fun of them or humiliate them

That's just nonsense. Your feeds seem to be polluted by what you are seeking out, as I've never seen a video on any service that shows humiliation of anyone.

I watch a lot of 1st ammendment audit videos, and that is never about humiliation, though many people end up looking very ignorant of the laws concerning recording in public which is in the 1st ammendment.

observationist3• 5 months ago

You shouldn't expect privacy in public spaces. That's the nature of public spaces. In the US, freedom of press means anywhere public means you have no expectation of privacy, and should comport yourself as such; don't do anything or wear anything in public you wouldn't want to be recorded.

This is why paparazzi exist and how they operate. It's the dirty, dingy cost of having a free press, freedom of travel, freedom to hold public officials accountable, subject to the same laws you are; you can't waffle or restrict or grant exceptions, because those inevitably, invariably get abused by those in power.

teaearlgraycold• 5 months ago

The difference is public vs. private spaces. The supreme court in the US has defended the right to record videos in public. But if someone walks into my home, or my 3rd space, etc. with one of these on actively recording that should absolutely be criminalized and enforced.

observationist3• 5 months ago

Actually useful AR needs cameras, of course, so the technology has legitimate use cases, but you'd have to be a real asshole to wear them to a bar, or a restaurant, etc. Maybe we mandate that the glasses have to have a base station dongle, and if they're more than 10 feet from the dongle, recording doesn't work without incredibly obvious annoying lights indicating that recording is on?

A cultural convention that lets people make honest mistakes, but turn it off when someone says "hey, you're recording" seems like a good solution. Just need to make it easily visible and obvious to others - you can run around in public with a big news camera on your shoulder or a tripod and you usually won't get hassled. It's just the idea of being covertly recorded, even while in public, that gets creepy.

alkonaut9• 5 months ago

Maybe if we weigh legitimate use cases against privacy and end up deciding that the privacy is more important, then we just don't accept those use cases? That is: we invent new awesome life-changing technology and we just... don't use it?

Like we could have navigational AR-glasses. The wearer sees arrows on the floor where to walk. And we could choose to not let anyone wear them in public even though what they do is useful, and there aren't any real privacy issues. But people around the wearer don't know that. That's the privacy concern.

leptons7• 5 months ago

There are very few places you can expect privacy in public. Restrooms, changing rooms, etc. But in most places in public you should have zero expectation of privacy (in the US).

In private settings, as with public, you are typically free to leave a setting where people are recording.

The law has no specifications for what type of device can do the recording, pr for how long a recording can be.

greentea234• 5 months ago

What you expect does not have to be what you strive for.

alkonaut9• 5 months ago

in most places in public you should have zero expectation of privacy (in the US)

Shouldn't there be a discussion about what that means? What _is_ privacy? Is it completely black or white, all or nothing? Are some kinds of privacy breaches more acceptable than others?

I feel that the "you can have no expectation of privacy in public" discussion is some times used as if it's some sort of fundamental truth that must not be challenged. If people _want_ to have more privacy in public, whatever that means, then let's make it happen.

alkonaut9• 5 months ago

And I think we need to redefine privacy as something that isn't black or white. In a bathroom or in my home I expect complete privacy. In the street I expect _less privacy_ but it doesn't mean I have "no expectation of privacy".

If my biometrics or a recording of my voice is sent to a different continent and then used to change which ad shows on the phone of the person next to me on the subway, then that's less privacy than I expected and wanted.

aucisson_masque3• 5 months ago

Beside the privacy part, I fail to see what value these glasses bring that a smartphone with a camera can't do already ?

And you're still forced to carry a smartphone anyway with these glasses since they require internet connection.

Is this fashion, or something I'm not aware of ? They look horrendous to me.

charcircuit• 5 months ago

You can seamlessly take a photos without having to pull your phone out of your pockets and dedicate and arm to filming and you can listen to music without having to touch your phone. The audio recording of videos is 3D and when you play them back it's realistic where the audio is coming from.

since they require internet connection.

Only the AI features require internet. You can technically take pictures and video without carrying around your phone, but realistically people are going to carry there phone with them.

ninininino2• 5 months ago

POV camera footage without holding your phone out in front of you distracting you from having to look down at your phone instead of up at the thing you're filming? Imagine you want to capture your POV but also want to be present and in the moment, not looking at a 6 inch rectangle screen to check your framing of what you're capturing.

galleywest200• 5 months ago

Go-Pro on forehead? Thats what outdoor enthusiasts do. If you need to make room for a headlamp then pin it to your jacket maybe.

hapticmonkey• 5 months ago

I fail to see what value these glasses bring that a smartphone with a camera can't do already ?

Stop thinking like an end user and think like a Meta shareholder.

Meta don't own smartphone hardware or operating systems. Apple and Android locked that market up. But if they can create a new market and own that, then imagine all the data they can harvest!

autoexec6• 5 months ago

Glasses can superimpose ads over everything in your field of vision.

MerrimanInd• 5 months ago

I was in engineering school back in ~2012 when Google Glass came out. One of my classmates got hold of a pair when they were still quite uncommon and wore them to an extracurricular club meeting. Within minutes someone made a comment about him wearing the "creeper" glasses and asked if he was filming. He never wore them to the club again.

I just don't see a world where that doesn't happen with Meta glasses.

idontwantthis• 5 months ago

It can happen if it’s not easy to tell immediately what they are.

yonatan80703• 5 months ago

Unfortunately, the Meta glasses look much more normal, and a person who isn't actively looking for them (and especially one who is unaware of them) isn't likely to notice them.

NicuCalcea• 5 months ago

There is a way to sus them out: https://www.404media.co/this-app-warns-you-if-someone-is-wea...

Not perfect, but better than nothing I guess. I don't think I've noticed the glasses IRL anywhere, but if I start seeing them, I'm definitely installing the app and avoiding any interactions with those people.

paulpauper2• 5 months ago

they are still very easy to spot. they are very bulky around the rims

http-teapot3• 5 months ago

A family member has one and I didn't notice until they had to charge their pair. The little circles are subtle giveaways otherwise they look like regular pair of glasses. When everything is always on, I'd like to keep my house "off" and those things are a direct violation of that.

groos• 5 months ago

I have a strict policy of no Meta glasses for guests in my house. Socially, they're poison.

nothrowaways2• 5 months ago

We have "NO meta glasses" rule at my workplace.

jjkaczor• 5 months ago

There is almost always an appropriate XKCD...

https://xkcd.com/1807/

zer0zzz7• 5 months ago

2026 is not 2012

esafak• 5 months ago

They're okay in your circle today? Not mine.

array_key_first2• 5 months ago

You're right, it's much worse and we should be doing everything we can to turn it around.

I propose we just assume people with meta glasses are recording others in public and we call them creeps. Shaming works, we should use it more.

flir• 5 months ago

It's strange to me that that's the line society seems to have drawn in the sand. Body cam, no problem. Doorbell cam, practically universal. Body cam worn on the face? No way. I wonder why.

mmh0000• 5 months ago

"Surveillance Camera Man"[1] makes a good practical example of it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9sVqKFkjiY

Retric2• 5 months ago

Cop body cam footage is more likely to help you vs a cop than get you into trouble because a cop is already there watching what you’re doing. IE: Thank god the cop’s camera was off when I was buying crack, I might have gotten in trouble otherwise… fails because a cop was already watching you.

Cops also announce their presence in uniforms and are operating as government agents. People already moderate their behavior around cops so being recorded isn’t as big a deal.

cortesoft• 5 months ago

It might be the line in the sand now, but it probably won’t be for long.

sqircles• 5 months ago

People want to be deceived.

jbxntuehineoh2• 5 months ago

I also don't like having doorbell cams everywhere, at least not the ones that upload all their footage to the ~great mass surveillance network in the sky~ Cloud(TM). I don't think that's an uncommon point of view. And body cams are only worn by cops and at least provide some concrete benefits in terms of increasing police accountability.

fbelzile• 5 months ago

Police body cams are typically only used while on-duty and in public, where there is no expectation of privacy. They also don't automatically send video into the cloud to be analyzed by a human for AI training, as mentioned in this article. Video is usually only retrieved if needed on a case-by-case basis.

Doorbell cameras are also typically pointed toward public streets, where again, there is no expectation of privacy. Even then, many people have been removing Ring cameras after they were shown to automatically upload video without user's knowledge.

MagicMoonlight• 5 months ago

A body cam is worn by a trained police officer and lights up with a big red flashing light and audible warnings. It is used to record serious crimes.

A face camera has no light or warnings (you just put tape over the small light), and is operated by a pervert.

ClikeX2• 5 months ago

Body cams are directly visible, and are there to add accountability to the actions of law enforcement. These glasses are covert cameras. Someone that doesn't know what they look like isn't going to know someone might be filming. That's a big difference.

Not sure how it is where you live, but doorbell cameras are commonly criticized where I live. With many people claiming they don't feel comfortable walking around anymore knowing that the entire neighborhood is filming them.

bonoboTP• 5 months ago

What do you mean bodycam isn't a problem? Do people wear body cams to normal social occasions?

People are more okay with cameras in public areas and less okay if it's in intimate, social, private situations, inside apartments, individual offices etc.

gorjusborg2• 5 months ago

I'm amazed you can't see the difference.

Body cam - used to protect the police and people being policed in a potentially hot conflict. Recording is scoped to these specific interactions that rarely occur for most people.

Doorbell cam - highly controversial. See response to dog-finding superbowl ad.

Body cam wore on face - Mass surveillance in potentially every conceivable social context. Data owned by Meta, a company known for building a profile on people that don't even use their products.

patmorgan23• 5 months ago

Body cameras aren't hidden and are worn by public officials while on duty, doorbell cameras are no more invasive than an CCTV camera a home owner might have installed on their premise.

I think the difference is that these cameras are relatively concealed, and can be used to record every interaction, even in pretty intimate/private settings. Yes you could do this with a cell phone but it would be pretty obvious your recording if you're trying to get more than just the audio of an interaction.

megous• 5 months ago

Lines were and are always weird, all the time. Americans killing 150 girls yesterday in a school, just a footnote in the news, already gone today. Some rando killing 10 people in a university in my country, endless discussion, politicians, punduits all up in arms spewing their opinions for months, discussing it to no end. Only difference? I don't know. I don't know almost anyone in my country, they're all as foreign to me as some girls in Iran. There's no difference to me.

There's very little sense to me in searching for meaning in any of this. It just is, people are that way. There are no lines and boundaries based on anything but just whims.

nephihaha• 5 months ago

Some doorbell cams film other people's homes.

gambiting• 5 months ago

>I just don't see a world where that doesn't happen with Meta glasses.

Apparently they sold 7 million of these. So I think a whole lot of people don't care about this aspect.

wongarsu4• 5 months ago

Judging from the examples reported on in the article, Meta's smart glasses are either very easy to accidentally trigger or quite popular with actual creeps

_trampeltier• 5 months ago

There are a lot of creeps out there. In summertime I'm pretty often tanning in nude beaches. Almost every time, somewhere there is a guy around with a cellphone or such a spy glass.

dyauspitr• 5 months ago

It’s just going to be accepted. Or there is going to be some sort of Japanesque requirement that there be some light on when the camera is filming.

derwiki• 5 months ago

They do have a light that’s on when recording

Geonode2• 5 months ago

There is a world, because when the displays are high quality and they're thinner and lighter, they're going to replace phones, and almost everyone will be wearing them.

hnuser847• 5 months ago

Nah, I don't see it. They've been trying to make smart glasses a thing for over a decade and it's not working. Nobody wants them. I don't think it's necessarily a privacy thing, it's just that smart glasses don't solve a real problem. Same with VR.

kibwen• 5 months ago

It doesn't matter how high quality, convenient, or light they are, as long as wearing glasses isn't inherently cool, normal people aren't going to choose to wear them.

wewtyflakes3• 5 months ago

I think that since the input modalities are (seemingly) restricted to eye movement and sound, that it is impractical to replace a phone, where someone can engage privately.

mr_toad• 5 months ago

Are they going to be as hard to keep clean as glasses. Honestly it’s the biggest problem I have with sunglasses, it’s that as soon as you get a speck of dirt on them they’re annoying. And if it starts raining you can’t see anything (and you look like a tool).

r0fl• 5 months ago

I’ve had meta ray bans since the week they came out

My friends always have a cheap shot when I wear them but are completely fine now and appreciate fun candid videos I send them

Amazing for vacations with the kids

rationalist7• 5 months ago

As much as I disagree with the cameras, you should not have been downvoted. If anything, people who are against the cameras need to see your anecdotal experience so that they can see how easy it will be for these cameras to proliferate.

baby_souffle• 5 months ago

10 years have elapsed, peoples expectations have changed a lot. Back around the time of the first iPhone, it was pretty common to see signs in gym changing rooms akin to 'no cameras permitted'... Now you'd have to physically separate people from their phones before entering the locker room if you are going to enforce that.

And all of that is to ignore that neither gen1 or 2 of Google Glass attempted to look like regular glasses. The Meta frames are largely indistinguishable from regular glasses unless you are very up close.

AlienRobot2• 5 months ago

Unfortunately the frog is boiling and some people already think that "in public" means "it's okay to record people and post it on the Internet."

linkjuice4all2• 5 months ago

In the US, at least, it's pretty much legal to record the public as long as people have no expectation of privacy (IANAL, exclusions apply, non-commercial use, etc)

It's difficult to draw a bright line between these activities:

- I told someone else something I saw the other day

- I painted a picture of the public square or wrote a book about specific activities that I witnessed

- I specifically remembered an individual based on their face, visible tattoos, location, license plate, or some other unique factor and voluntarily testified to that fact in a court of law

- I spent every day at the same corner making note of the various people/vehicles that I saw

- I stuck a camera at that same point (perhaps on my private properly directly abutting a public space) and recorded everything, posted it publicly on the internet, and used automated technology to identify people, text, vehicles, etc

- I paid a different person every day to follow someone around and record what they did

- I developed a drone system that could follow specific individuals/vehicles from airspace I'm allowed to occupy

Pretty much everything I described above is legal in most of the United States. Obviously it gets creepier and more uncomfortable going down the list (I don't really like it when I'm the subject of any of these activities) but how do you stop this?

I'll at least throw out some options

- Implement some form of right to forget

- Forbid individuals or organizations from doing any of these

- Enact actual "civil rights" level privacy protections (extend HIPAA? automatic copyright for human faces? new amendment?) that include protection of individual's DNA, unique facial features, and other "uniquely human" attributes

xboxnolifes2• 5 months ago

An entire new generation of people have been born and raised into a world that is more accepting of always recording and being recorded since 14 years ago.

martin1975• 5 months ago

And they will soon find out that world's make believe. No one I know, and I know hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of people would allow themselves in a room to be recorded surreptitiously.

nitwit005• 5 months ago

A common fear for younger people has become being recorded and becoming famous in some embarrassing video. I don't see the problem as having gone away.

boca_honey3• 5 months ago

I'm not sure if you have experience with teenagers, but you’ll quickly realize they are even more resistant to this technology than we ever were. For the vast majority of kids today, this is their worst nightmare. They will reject it even more forcefully than we have.

pibaker• 5 months ago

Even in an environment where filming (with phones) is common and acceptable, smart glasses can still come off as rude because others find it hard tell if you are recording or not.

To record a video on your phone you need to hold your phone up pointed at the other person, usually not in the same way you would normally use a phone. If you see someone holding his phone steady at face level and pointing at something without making finger movements, you know he is filming. If someone is pointing his phone down towards the ground and scrolling around with his thumb, you know he is probably not.

To record from a pair of smart glasses you just need to look at someone, as you would normally look at any other thing. Yes there will be an LED on, but the person being recorded probably couldn't see it if it is in a bright, busy environment and you are more than a few steps away, plus there will be aftermarket modifications to disable the LED. In short, there is no way you can reliably tell if someone's smart glasses are filming you. You have to assume that worst.

alwa• 5 months ago

And yet, the New York Times reports that all the hottest clubs are banning phones on the dance floor. Perhaps in reaction to having lived the downsides of omnipresent social surveillance, the youngest adults in my life are uniformly sober about the perils of oversharing.

Then again, there may be some selection bias at play…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/nyregion/nyc-nightlife-no...

designerarvid• 5 months ago

In Sweden, kids have stopped showering after PE class due to this concern.

The world is not deterministic, and we can shape norms of how we interact with each other. We don't have to accept being constantly recorded just because the technology makes it possible.

kwar13• 5 months ago

People who get shamed with a comment like that are usually not the "creepers" in public. You don't need social pressure. You need actual safeguards.

rockskon• 5 months ago

Safeguard?

No, we need to make this as socially radioactive as possible. We don't need to establish a permission structure to allow Facebook to continue doing this without repercussion.

ThrowawayR2• 5 months ago

Unfortunately, "The French-Italian eyewear brand [EssilorLuxottica] said it sold over 7 million AI glasses last year, up from the 2 million that the company sold in 2023 and 2024 combined." from https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/ray-ban-maker-essilorluxotti... . That's at least 9 million units in the field, probably 1000x more than Google Glass ever sold, and more than 3x growth in sales in one year.

[EDIT] I really shouldn't need to say this on Hacker News but don't shoot the messenger for messages you don't want to hear. Reporting a fact does not imply approval or disapproval of it.

lofaszvanitt2• 5 months ago

Well, then they gonna offer implants in another 5-10 years later.

navaed01• 5 months ago

These glasses are doing incredibly well from a sales perspective. Social norms have shifted, user generated content is huge, being a video influencer is a real job - so seeing people filming is more accepted than 12 yea ago. It doesn’t mean I like it but these are not going away. I do think they lack a killer app, but there’s a part there with conversational AI that can act on your behalf

grigri907• 5 months ago

I don't know. I clearly remember a time when phones first got cameras and there were debates on whether or not we should prohibit phones in public bathrooms. Perceptions changed. Fast.

al_borland5• 5 months ago

I think the social contract is still such that your phone’s camera should not be used in the bathroom.

I’ve seen stories of people banned from gyms for taking selfies in the locker room as people were walking by.

jackcviers33• 5 months ago

It seems like a more polite way of handling this in private spaces is just to ask that people take them off - just like we do when a pig farmer walks into our house with their boots on.

I get why people are creeped out by them, but we get filmed or photographed hundreds of times a day in a big city when we are in public spaces. Gatekeeping a potentially useful technology for being filmed in public -- well, everyone is _already_ filmed in public. ATM cameras, stoplight cameras, drone cameras, smartphone cameras, security cameras, doorbell cameras. You are on camera every time you step out of your house. You are on camera every time you open your work computer. Singling out cameras in eyeglasses as "creepy" is kind of worrying about a drop in the ocean. Cameras on self-driving cars. Nanny cams. Closed-circuit cameras. The things are everywhere, and they are always invasions of privacy. Why is the line the "creeper" glasses?

I'd be ok with it if we were for banning all non-consensual recordings in all spaces. But we're very much not.

And if we're not, then having a personal heads-up display that is contextual to your current surroundings or has augmented reality capability is too useful to not use (eventually). I'm bad with names, and good with faces. That use-case alone would be worth it for me, if it were available.

fc417fc8027• 5 months ago

well, everyone is _already_ filmed in public. ATM cameras, stoplight cameras, drone cameras, smartphone cameras, security cameras, doorbell cameras.

And we probably ought to regulate how all such footage is handled.

banning all non-consensual recordings in all spaces

It's a false dichotomy. Even if recording is permitted that doesn't mean the systemic invasion of personal privacy needs to be.

AshamedBadger56• 5 months ago

"It seems like a more polite way of handling this in private spaces is just to ask that people take them off - just like we do when a pig farmer walks into our house with their boots on."

Just FYI, they do heavily market this towards RX glasses wearers. So, you wouldn't quite be able to just as simply ask someone to take off their glasses and no longer be able to see.

socalgal22• 5 months ago

You're already in that world. Phones have ubiqitous cameras and they are normalized at this point. It's a common scene in a movie where instead of helping someone who was hurt, people just pull out their phones and film.

Cameras on glasses will be normalized too. A few HNer types will scream. The rest of the "nothing to hide so nothing to fear" group will just wear them. (not saying I agree with "nothing to hide so nothing to fear". Rather, I'm saying that's common way of thinking. Common enough that it's likely people will wear these eventually.

How about this marketing approach: "College woman, tired of creepers trying to hit on you. Worried about getting roofied. Wear these glasses and turn the creeps in".

f33d5173• 5 months ago

The google glasses deliberately looked distinct from normal glasses. The facebook glasses don't. That has a massive impact.

mmooss• 5 months ago

I just don't see a world where that doesn't happen with Meta glasses.

People widely accept mass surveilance and facial recognition, including by doorbells, phones, cameras on the street, etc. They post images and videos online to corporations that perform facial recognition. They accept government collecting data broadly by facial recognition.

People accept all sorts of horrors and nonsense, unrelated to and many times much worse than privacy violations, because (I think) they are normalized on social media, which is controlled editorially by Zuckerberg, Musk, Ellison, etc.

I'm not saying we're doomed. I'm saying nobody else will save us. We have to make it happen.

webdevver2• 5 months ago

i mean theres kind of no way around it. how else are you gonna get the training data you need? the only way to bootstrap ai is to tag the data with bio-ai first (humans).

different companies 'launder' it differently: with voice, it was done by "accidental" voice assistant activations. i guess with glasses, maybe there will be less window dressing this time. after all, it is clearly pitched to see what you see, at all times of the day.

similar controversy happened with the various roomba products, although arguably that was a combination of data harvesting + lazy engineering.

dangus2• 5 months ago

There are lots of ways around it, like adding a transparent “training mode” that a user can enable with consent, legitimately purchasing training data, etc.

The root cause is that meta didn’t want to pay the fair market value for those videos and just stole them from its users by burying it in TOS.

If they were honest about their intentions most people would say no or demand payment for providing something of value.

medi8r6• 5 months ago

That would be good. A YC company is paying people to do just this. You know the data is being uploaded, so you can avoid e.g. your kids coming into frame.

Really it should just be in the UI. Click Upload this and get 10c/minute or whatever for the video. Choose what you upload. That'd be closer in effect to using social media.

medi8r6• 5 months ago

Lol! The no way round it defense. I'll have to remember that.

blakesterz• 5 months ago

  Meta aims to introduce facial recognition to its smart glasses while its biggest critics are distracted, according to a report from The New York Times. In an internal document reviewed by The Times, Meta says it will launch the feature “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”

https://www.theverge.com/tech/878725/meta-facial-recognition...

wongarsu4• 5 months ago

That shouldn't be too difficult with the current US administration. Maybe another reason Bezos and Trump get along so well

pluc3• 5 months ago

They better invest in frame designs too cause as soon as they're recognizable they're gonna get slapped off faces real quick

thewebguyd• 5 months ago

Maybe we'll see the revival of the term "glasshole"

pesus• 5 months ago

Sometimes analog solutions are the most effective against digital problems.

hightrix3• 5 months ago

Are there any less obviously aggressive tactics we can use? Wear something that is blinding to the cameras, or something else to obfuscate?

nanobuilds• 5 months ago

The long term goal might indeed be unrecognizable designs. Perhaps augmented reality contact lens. It will take a long time but people tend to slowly get used to giving more and more of their privacy away. Mojo Vision made a prototype of this. It's more the display but you can imagine the camera being somewhere else and streaming to the lens in an unobstructed way.

testbjjl3• 5 months ago

While I don’t disagree, with the sentiment, is this not incitement of violence?

sershe• 5 months ago

I'm not the kind of person to wear those, but if I was and someone tried to slap them off me I might feel really threatened if you catch my drift. And since I won't be able to see too well, it will take some extra effort... Was that remaining movement the next punch, or death throes? Can't see too well, better safe than sorry!

esseph2• 5 months ago

For android users: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.ne...

ViktorRay• 5 months ago

The lack of self awareness is pretty fascinating.

tty456• 5 months ago

The individuals making these decisions are 100% aware of what they are doing. Driving for and implementing stuff like this is for profits, bonuses, and internal recognition.

ambicapter• 5 months ago

What do you mean? They're fully aware this would be received poorly by "certain groups" and are applying all that highly-praised brain power to getting around that undesirable issue to keep their RSUs growing.

xg15• 5 months ago

care-less people, etc...

thatguy0900• 5 months ago

This is unironically what happens when society rewards sociopaths

Forgeties792• 5 months ago

Why is it always this accusatory “while you were distracted”-style rhetoric?

Who has been distracted from Facebook’s shenanigans? Who are they talking about? Is it me? Because I can tell you I have certainly not been distracted on that front. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Am I supposed to hold somebody accountable who should’ve been paying attention?

I do actually understand why it’s done, but I just find it very grating and if your goal is to actually raise awareness, shaming people is generally not the way to go about it.

Also the classic “we can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time” thing

GuinansEyebrows2• 5 months ago

interesting (respectfully!) take that the "while you were distracted" rhetoric is coming from investigative journalists/commenters - i read this more as Meta's admission that they're betting on critics being distracted than an admonition by outside observers. it's probably easier to sneak up on a person to rob them when it's foggy; that's not victim blaming.

tokioyoyo• 5 months ago

Less attention on you, less negative press, better sales.

LambdaComplex• 5 months ago

I feel the same way every time I read that someone did something "quietly" in a headline.

ghurtado• 5 months ago

I usually hate this kind of click bait, but I think in this case it's warranted, since their explicit policy was to do this "while they are distracted". Verbatim.

lamontcg• 5 months ago

This is Meta claiming in their internal communications that they plan on doing it while people are distracted with other concerns.

It isn't really "rhetoric", they're talking like they believe this actually happens, this is strategy.

And I tend to agree with them that things like attention and political capital are ultimately finite resources.

I've found that the "we can do two things" and "we can walk and chew bubblegum" line of argument to be simplistic and just wrong (and pretty incredibly patronizing). I think the world works exactly the way Meta thinks that it does here.

It might blow up and turn into a Streisand effect, but more often than not this kind of strategy works.

Much like how people think they can multitask and talk on the phone and drive at the same time and every scientific measure of it shows that they really can't.

datsci_est_20155• 5 months ago

American society has a finite aggregate supply of attention. Politicians and megacorporations often exploit this fact. This Verge article is a leak that verifies that Meta is actively and brazenly continuing to exploit it.

Is that a good enough explanation to reduce your feelings of being personally targeted?

raisedbyninjas• 5 months ago

Well to an extent, it does work. Flood the zone.

michaelt• 5 months ago

Who has been distracted from Facebook’s shenanigans? Who are they talking about? Is it me? Because I can tell you I have certainly not been distracted on that front.

On September 11th 2001 a UK government department's press chief told their subordinates it was a "good day to bury bad news".

The idea is pretty simple - you might be obligated to announce something that you know will be poorly received, like poor train performance figures, but you can decide the exact day you announce it, like on a day when thousands have died in a terror attack. What would otherwise be front-page news is relegated to a few paragraphs on page 14.

Facebook proposes a similar strategy: Get the feature ready to go, wait until there's some much bigger news story, and deploy it that day.

randycupertino2• 5 months ago

The facebook execs literally plotted to relaunch their unpopular product while people were distracted by other bad news.

“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” according to the document from Meta’s Reality Labs, which works on hardware including smart glasses.

koolala• 5 months ago

It could auto blur faces... but people wouldn't use that feature.

Arcuru• 5 months ago

The actual source article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...

Waterluvian• 5 months ago

I really cannot comprehend how someone can work for a company like that and maintain possession of a soul. I feel like the older I’m getting, the further away I am from understanding.

devin• 5 months ago

The soulless kids who used to go into finance joined tech and are inspired by the current crop of tech billionaires in the way that their predecessors were inspired by Gordon Gecko.

refulgentis4• 5 months ago

I'm 37, single, no family or extended family b/c of an...interesting...childhood.

Every day I understand more and more that I have something really priceless and rare, complete luxury of choice, and 99% of people don't. (as with all things, it has its downside: nothing matters!)

I refused to get "stuck" in my hometown, which motivated me from college dropout to FAANG. Once I got there, it was novel to me that even rich people get "stuck" due to inability to imagine losing status, and also responsiblities that come with obvious, healthy, lifestyle choices (i.e. marriage and kids)

WD-424• 5 months ago

Gen Z doesn’t seem to carry the millennial “making the world a better place” sensibility. They are all hustle culture, all the time. While I appreciate a lot of their culture this is the aspect that makes me nervous about the future.

jmye3• 5 months ago

how someone can work for a company like that and maintain possession of a soul

I mean, they don’t. There isn’t a single decent person who has ever worked at Meta, and that started long before this nonsense. The entire company is about the social destruction of its users. Everything anyone there works on drives towards that goal.

dwayne_dibley2• 5 months ago

The same can be said about those working in the weapons industry etc.

rudhdb773b• 5 months ago

I never understand why a company would put something like this in writing.

I worked at a midsize financial company before and whenever there was something even approaching a legal or ethical grey area, we'd pick up the phone and say come to my office to talk, and then you'd close the door.

We weren't doing anything nearly as nefarious as Meta, yet everyone was always aware that email and phone conversations were recorded and archived.

godelski4• 5 months ago

Same reason project 2025 was put in writing. When you have large organizations you need to distribute communication. It's really just about cooperation and logistics

no_wizard• 5 months ago

We weren't doing anything nearly as nefarious

But still nefarious. Thats kinda messed up, to be honest.

conception• 5 months ago

When you have no fear about repercussions of being caught. Case in point, nothing will happen about this.

lovich• 5 months ago

I never understand why a company would put something like this in writing.

Do you believe these companies and individuals will ever see consequences for putting this in writing? I don't think they will, and I assume they believe the same based on their actions. Why waste time being "moral" when you don't lose anything for being immoral and stand to gain something if your gamble wins?

I mean, there's a whole philosophical outlook about being a good person and some people just want to do without needing enforcement, but those people also dont tend to become one of the largest corporations on the planet.

gherkinnn• 5 months ago

Maybe, just maybe, Meta bosses aren't even aware that what they're doing is nefarious. Just business as usual.

Now, one wonders what constitutes "nefarious" or a grey zone worth hiding in their minds.

godelski4• 5 months ago

I'm curious how the engineers justify this. I'm generally interested.

Please don't respond with how you think people justify, I want to hear the actual reasons. I'm tired of speculative responses to questions like these.

Please do share if you've had to deal with similar situations too. And feel free to respond with green accounts.

I legitimately want to understand why this happens. Not why from management, why from engineers.

shigawire• 5 months ago

Probably a mix of naivety, ignorance, and apathy.

Most people are just trying to get through their day and not worry about ethical questions.

I'd say that's terrible, but I'm not confident I'd be a better person if my livelihood depended on doing that sort of work, though I hope I'd be better.

bogzz2• 5 months ago

I am so far removed from the type of person who might consider buying something like that. You'd have to be exceptionally impervious to social cues to even think of wearing that in public.

If you're blind, it's of course understandable but that's pretty much it in terms of cases in which I would consider the glasses acceptable to wear in public.

algoth1• 5 months ago

Yet, it’s a life saver for blind people

bogzz2• 5 months ago

Thanks for the edge case! Edited.

bogwog• 5 months ago

How so? I'd expect the opposite

Hey Meta, is it safe to cross the street
You are absolutely correct to check whether it's safe to cross before crossing! (emoji). Let me check for you(emoji)
...10% ...40% ...80% ...100% DONE. (made up progress bar)
It is perfectly safe to cross right now! (emoji)
Thanks Meta! (user dies)

autoexec6• 5 months ago

This kind of tech could be used for a lot of really good and useful things, but it's facebook so it will mainly be used to screw over blind people and anyone else who uses them by violating their privacy, the privacy of everyone in view of them, and all while shoving ads at the users. Facebook is toxic.

abandonliberty• 5 months ago

They could also help with color-blindness and face-blindness.

al_borland5• 5 months ago

I hired some people to come do some work at my house. One of them was wearing Meta glasses. He said he got them so he could keep both his hands free while crawling around in an attic or wherever, and getting video of what they were inspecting to document the work to be done.

It’s possible that even if all your friends/family would stay far away, they could still end up in your proximity.

nothrowaways2• 5 months ago

The whole project is a Creepy privacy nightmare.

smbullet• 5 months ago

Hopefully this causes Meta to be more transparent about what data is sent to their annotators. It seems like even the annotators didn't know whether the person explicitly hit recorded (whether accidentally or not) or if it's samples from a constant stream. This kind of makes it impossible for anyone to consent to the purchase agreements.

oldfuture• 5 months ago

this should be known by everyone

GuinansEyebrows2• 5 months ago

    “I saw a video where a man puts the glasses on the bedside table and leaves the room.”
    “Shortly afterwards his wife comes in and changes her clothes”, one of them says.

based on this and other context in the article, it seems like there's a very realistic chance that Meta is in possession of and actively distributing (internally and to contractors) video content of minors. i wonder if any contractors have confirmed this or have been unwillingly (or worse) exposed to this.

diacritical• 5 months ago

I'm against surveillance in general and I see many people being against these glasses, yet not caring at all about surveillance cameras. Flock in the USA is a bit of an outlier in that it got some people riled up, but where I live in Europe there are private cameras looking out of at least half of the buildings, maybe more. So if you're walking down the street for 15 minutes, you'd be caught by tens or hundreds of cameras from various manufacturers, installed by various business and homes. Who knows how many have microphones, which server they store their feed in, what security each cam has and so on.

I asked 2 cops in a patrol car if I could install cameras on my own and how I should go about it. They said they don't mind them. Officially it's illegal unless you have a permit, but it's so widespread and the law is so unenforced that it's practically 99.99% legal.

I can point a few cameras to the street and record everything 24/7. When I'm on a bus I'm being recorded by a few cameras. On most bus/tram/subway stops there are cameras. In stores and public buildings there are cameras. Most cars have cameras for insurance or general safety concerns. Self-driving cars would have to have cameras, as well as delivery robots.

If we accept this shitty reality, why shouldn't I wear a camera and a mic, too?

http-teapot3• 5 months ago

I think there is a wide gap between public surveillance and private surveillance.

Smart glasses record in private settings and the biggest point of contention is that they "stealth" record. If someone recorded you with their phone, you'd immediately notice whereas it's hardly noticeable with smart glasses. Worse, people at Facebook are able to visualize scenes from people's home unbeknownst to them.

lvl155• 5 months ago

Only Meta and Zuck would continually introduce invasive products.

jbxntuehineoh2• 5 months ago

On an unrelated note, the FT reported today [1] that Israel was able to track Iranian leadership by hacking "nearly all" of the traffic cameras in Tehran. Anyways, I think we should continue to put as many networked cameras, microphones, and other sensors in as many products as possible. There are no downsides!

[1] https://archive.is/QSCjf

twodave7• 5 months ago

I overall agree with your point, but I don’t think “tracking leadership of a country that murders tens of thousands of its own citizens” is a strong supporting argument…

palata2• 5 months ago

Because you think that "being able to track leadership of a country that knows that other countries may want to target them" does not mean "being able to track pretty much anyone"?

Or do you think that those cameras are less secure because the leadership is not good with their people?

I'm not sure I follow the criticism here.

Computer0• 5 months ago

I overall agree with your point, but I don’t think defending a country engaged in a genocide is a strong supporting argument…

bigyabai5• 5 months ago

Why not? China is taking notes, it's merely a matter of time before the shoe is on the other foot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon

dehrmann2• 5 months ago

This is a little like how congress feels differently about things like email privacy when they're the ones under the microscope. These ideas seem fine in a world of honest actors, but when there's an adversarial element in the mix, what you thought brought security can be used against you.

medi8r6• 5 months ago

Hacking is so 2010s. Now you just ask big tech for the footage.

pstoll• 5 months ago

TLDR the recorded media isn’t end-to-end encrypted and they aren’t selling it but instead using it to train their own systems. What is new here?

jotux• 5 months ago

Meta needs to make a find-your-lost-dog commercial for their smart glasses ASAP.

rationalist7• 5 months ago

Can someone just make one using AI and share it?

ncr100• 5 months ago

Just think of the children. Changing a soiled garment, transmitting video of the whole ordeal, isn't that super illegal?

bamboozled• 5 months ago

These things are a pedo dream.

rationalist7• 5 months ago

Not in the U.S.

To be illegal, it would either have to be focused on the genitals or of sexual content. Nudity is not automatically sexual.

nosequel• 5 months ago

I won't even walk into a house with Alexa devices around, there is no way I'm going to let Meta glasses be in the same room as me.

crazygringo• 5 months ago

Don you carry a cell phone? Do you walk into rooms where other people have smartphones with Siri or Google Assistant? Those are literally no different from Alexa.

al_borland5• 5 months ago

My dad has an Alexa and told me about a couple situations that were very creepy. He somehow laughed it off instead of throwing it in the trash. I will never understand that.

stbtrax3• 5 months ago

How does that even work? Do you ask before you go in whether they have devices? and do you not go around mobile phones with ai assistants?

guelo• 5 months ago

Those glasses have a tiny white led when the camera is on. It really needs to be more obvious. This might be something we'll need legislation for since Meta is an evil-ish immoral company.

autoexec6• 5 months ago

This is facebook. I wouldn't trust them to turn the light on every time the camera is recording.

stavros2• 5 months ago

They do, and the glasses don't record if you cover the LED.

FireSquid2006• 5 months ago

I'm not sure if there is any use case that could convince me to mount an internet connected device to my head at all times.

jlarocco• 5 months ago

Doesn't matter when everybody around you has one.

nomilk• 5 months ago

Is it paranoid to assume every device with a camera/mic can see/hear everything?

That's my default assumption.

impossiblefork• 5 months ago

While it may be legal for an individual to film something, it is certainly not permissible to process video data of this sort at scale.

I don't agree that responsibility to comply with Swedish law is on the wearer. This should motivate prosecutors to immediately order raids to secure any data relating to the processing of the data.

I also think the Swedish camera surveillance law is also applicable and there's a deceptive element since the cameras are disguised as glasses.

NalNezumi• 5 months ago

I sincerely hope someone in Japan or Korea get caught using those to peek under trousers on the train so it get the forced camera sound treatment of smartphones over there.

So the world can label them as Hentai glasses and move on

tjpnz• 5 months ago

They're not being sold in Japan and based on existing laws wouldn't last long on the market if they were. As a longterm resident of Japan this is something I'm very happy about.

febusravenga• 5 months ago

Good to hear, some countries already have some privacy laws protecting is from this type of products. Anyone has share more specifics about those laws, how's that they are effective in this case (unlike GDPR which is annoying and usually toothless).

gverrilla4• 5 months ago

Incel glasses sounds better imo.

mayowaxcvi• 5 months ago

My concern was whether the glasses might record or transmit data while switched off or in standby mode. From what I can tell, they don’t do this intentionally. So the risk is broadly similar to other modern electronic devices.

The creepiness concern is real, but I think people misplace where the actual surveillance happens. The most consequential stores of personal data aren’t ad networks they’re things like banks, hospitals, insurers, and telecoms. These institutions hold information about your health, finances, movements, and relationships, indexed and searchable by employees you’ve never met, governed by policies you’ve never read.

Realistically, there’s very little an individual can do to completely opt out.

My take is: if the main outcomes are that I get shown ads for things I don’t need and my facecomputer knows the difference between a fork and a spoon… I… I can live with that.

drnick13• 5 months ago

Realistically, there’s very little an individual can do to completely opt out.

Yes, but it's possible, at the cost of some minor inconvenience, to greatly limit data collected about you.

Communicate over private channels (Signal, own XMPP servers, NOT Whatsapp), pay in cash or crypto, runs free software on all your devices, and deny Internet access to devices across the board (this includes all TVs/monitors, all "smart" devices, cars, and other appliances).

The real issue is that (as these glasses exemplify), it is difficult to prevent others to intentionally or unintentionally provide data to surveillance companies. This happens when you walk in front of a Ring camera, when someone uploads a selfie to Facebook and you happen to be in the background, and in countless other situations.

al_borland5• 5 months ago

it is difficult to prevent others to intentionally or unintentionally provide data to surveillance companies

One that bothers me a lot are all the apps that want people to share your contacts to find your friends. This is a quick way for them to get all the contact information, which may also include birthdays and other more sensitive details.

Even if I were to never make a Facebook account, I could almost guarantee they still have my name, address, phone number, DOB, and maybe more.

advisedwang• 5 months ago

So the risk is broadly similar to other modern electronic devices.

No. When your record a video on your phone, it is not being reviewed annotators. Generally companies only pay to get labeling done on data that is being used to train (or evaluate) ML models.

roughly2• 5 months ago

Everything else in this article is horrific, but this stuck out to me:

“The algorithms sometimes miss. Especially in difficult lighting conditions, certain faces and bodies become visible”.

Right, “difficult lighting conditions,” not sure when we’d run into those in situations where we might be concerned with privacy. A 97% success rate looks good on paper.

matsemann5• 5 months ago

"certain faces", they're definitely saying it doesn't blur non-white/black faces properly..

yalogin• 5 months ago

Of course they can, why would one expect anything else? However if you look through their processes I am sure they are covered by some legal jargon to do the bare minimum in terms of security. They will have every knob available to debug to the lowest level possible and view everything

jcgrillo5• 5 months ago

It's genuinely uncanny to see good tech journalism.. it's normally so much worse than this

rosstex• 5 months ago

You can thank Sweden in this case

showerst• 5 months ago

How does this not fall afoul of states with two party consent laws around recording conversations? Particularly since California is one of the strictest states.

loeg• 5 months ago

How does your phone's camera? Ultimately, it's up to users to obey laws with their recording devices.

zmmmmm• 5 months ago

I do think it's completely unacceptable if Meta makes the glasses unable to be used for routine functions without (a) other humans reviewing your private content and (b) AI training on your content. There needs to be total transparency to people when this is happening - these are absolutes.

But I'm a bit confused by the article because it describes things that seem really unlikely given how the glasses work. They shine a bright light whenever recording. Are people really going into bathrooms, having sex, sharing rooms with people undressed while this light is on? Or is this deliberate tampering, malfunctioning, or Meta capturing footage without activating the light (hard to believe even Meta would do this intentionally).

losvedir3• 5 months ago

Agreed. I'm confused trying to map what the article is saying to what's happening at a technical level. For example, obviously it's not doing on-device inference, so it's unsurprising that it won't work without a network connection, but this is totally distinct from your recordings ending up getting labeled. It talks about being able to opt into that, which is one thing. But I guess I don't understand if you don't opt in, if the data still gets sent out for labeling.

I feel like this article is either a bombshell, or totally confused.

noduerme2• 5 months ago

> but this is totally distinct from your recordings ending up getting labeled

The distinction here occurs wherever the data is processed, and it sounds as if the difference between using your video for labeling versus privately processing it through an AI is deliberately confusing and obscured to the user by the way the terms of service are written. Once the video is uploaded, which is necessary for the basic function, it's unclear how or whether it can be separated from other streams that do go through labeling. This confusion also seems to be an intentional dark pattern.

cmiles743• 5 months ago

My reading was that as soon as you enable the "AI" functionality you are opted into having your recordings labeled.

"But for the AI assistant to function, voice, text, image and sometimes video must be processed and may be shared onwards. This data processing is done automatically and cannot be turned off."

alterom5• 5 months ago

hard to believe even Meta would do this intentionally).

Hahahahahahahaha

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard

ZUCK: just ask

ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns

FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?

ZUCK: people just submitted it

ZUCK: i don’t know why

ZUCK: they “trust me”

ZUCK: dumb fucks

Actual quote, BTW [1].

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-fa...

drawnwren• 5 months ago

As much as this is a damning quote, it is perhaps also damning that any time someone wants to smear zuck they have to reach 20 years into the past.

jcgrillo5• 5 months ago

This is a very important window into how the industry, by and large, views users and the concept of privacy. It's not merely authoritarian and predatory, to them users are subhuman.

pembrook2• 5 months ago

Now if only we could look up everything you said in chatrooms as a 19 year old and post the most inflammatory stuff on HN.

I’m sure you’ve never said anything callous or snarky, and were a bastion of morality as a teenager.

lucasfin000• 5 months ago

The worst part isn't even that quote, its that nothing structurally has changed one bit since then. The business model still requires users as the product. Glasses that upload video to Meta's servers is the entire point.

Sabinus• 5 months ago

If you're not paying a subscription for Meta to AI process your audio and video then they're going to get value out of it some way. It's just like any other 'free' digital service

hananova• 5 months ago

But there is total transparency though? Meta is using all your data, always. And the harder they say they’re not, the sneakier they’re doing it.

jcgrillo5• 5 months ago

This is historically what we've had consumer protection regulations for. When they put lead, radium, asbestos, arsenic, or other poisons in consumer products the regulators step in and put a stop to it. It should be pretty clear at this point these consumer tech companies are no different--they're just producing poison. And it's not like there weren't signs, it's been like this for damn near a quarter century.

_ink_• 5 months ago

I do believe people do all of that with the light on. And then there are also people who tamper with the device to deactivate the light. You can find guides for that online.

qnleigh• 5 months ago

Also some people probably tape over the light for whatever reason.

stronglikedan• 5 months ago

The funny thing about the light is that it doesn't even matter when surreptitious recording devices are trivial to make these days. You can never know when you're being recorded, even when no one is wearing glasses.

techpression• 5 months ago

If anyone were to record even when the light is not shining, it would be Meta. This would not surprise me at all, they have everything to win and nothing to lose, no country would fine them anything remotely relevant compared to the value of the data they'd be getting.

ccppurcell• 5 months ago

I mean laptop webcams also shine a light when they're recording but obviously you don't just trust the light to come on right?

cjrp• 5 months ago

I'd say the incentives are different. Laptop manufacturers see no upside from having the light stay off, whereas Meta might be the opposite.

jcgrillo5• 5 months ago

The more trustworthy ones have a physical door you can close

mentalgear• 5 months ago

The Zuck being the Zuck, I wouldn't put it past him collecting data even if the cosmetic light is not on.

InsideOutSanta• 5 months ago

I'm going to guess that people are intentionally recording themselves having sex, assuming that they are creating a local recording that is not sent to Meta. Does the light mean "camera is recording" or "cloud services are involved"?

phyrex• 5 months ago

Camera is recording/taking a picture

shevy-java4• 5 months ago

I am very much confused. People recorded sex way before the meta-spy-glasses.

I mean, not as if I were to visit such sites, right ... but video recordings can be done in numerous ways. Also on small devices. I mean the smartphones are fairly small.

cmiles743• 5 months ago

The article isn't clear on this point, I believe because Meta isn't clear on this themselves. Other bits of this piece highlight third parties reviewing the responses of the AI assistant; it's possible that people are recording and some sound they make triggers the AI assistant which, in turn, leads to the video being reviewed.

OTOH, Meta could just be desperate for training content and they're just slurping up all recordings by people who've opted into the AI function. It would be great for them to clarify how this works.

yard2010• 5 months ago

Follow up question - can we jailbreak this device and install an open source alternative that makes meta irrelevant?

GJim2• 5 months ago

There needs to be total transparency to people when this is happening

This is why WE have the GDPR. To outlaw and prevent exploitation such as this.

GJim2• 5 months ago

Presumably the 'drive-by' downvotes are coming from the ad-tech industry who would prefer the population to simply bend over and grab ankles with both hands the moment they request our personal data?

Findecanor2• 5 months ago

I find the root issue to be that what the glasses see is described as "content" in the first place.

lazide2• 5 months ago

People absolutely will (and are) modding them to hide that light. But even if they weren’t, a lot of people won’t notice.

And regardless of any privacy policy or the like, you still have to worry about Room 641A scenarios [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A].

Can you imaging a Stasi that has a large portion of the population also wearing pervasive surveillance tech? Amazing!

cmiles743• 5 months ago

This was one of the first hits on Kagi. 404 has a similar article (I think) but it's behind a paywall.

"The demand for this ‘Ray-Ban hack’ has been steadily increasing, with the hobbyist’s waiting list growing longer by the day. This demonstrates a clear desire among Ray-Ban owners to exercise more control over their privacy and mitigate concerns about unknowingly recording others."

pyrale• 5 months ago

It is also completely unacceptable to capture the public space without oversight and consent from third parties. If glass users are fine with that, why wouldn’t they accept it for themselves?

krunck• 5 months ago

It is absolutely within possibility that all "camera is on" lights are software controlled just like the camera and independently of the camera. They are meant to tell the user that they are using the camera. They are not meant to tell anyone that the owner of the devices back-end is using the camera.

vizzah• 5 months ago

they are not. their design is done well to make it hard to circumvent the light.

NickC25• 5 months ago

(hard to believe even Meta would do this intentionally)

Hard to believe they would?

This is Mark Zuckerberg we are talking about.

It's hard to believe they wouldn't.

benrapscallion• 5 months ago

It is Facebook. I expected exactly this from smart glasses made by them. You can’t change the DNA of a company.

lofaszvanitt2• 5 months ago

Strange Days - the movie - scenario.

jsbisviewtiful• 5 months ago

(hard to believe even Meta would do this intentionally)

Are you referring to the same company that runs Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram? Meta has, for well over a decade, been caught multiple times -as recently as 2 years ago caught for the third time I know of- burrowing into areas of phones that their apps weren't directly given access to. Android phones have been highly susceptible to this kind of snooping.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/meta-halts-phone-and-...

lelandfe• 5 months ago

Other 2 are Onavo Protect & Project Atlas

a_ba• 5 months ago

The light is a mere technicality. Zuck himself was smart enough to cover his laptop cam/camera with tape 10 years ago[0].

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36596070

ripped_britches• 5 months ago

Too funny that the subcontractor working for meta is “sama”

tim-tday• 5 months ago

Color me shocked.

iJohnDoe2• 5 months ago

FTA > "I saw a video where a man puts the glasses on the bedside table and leaves the room. Shortly afterwards his wife comes in and changes her clothes." "The workers describe videos where people’s bank cards are visible by mistake."

This is hugely concerning. We need more details. Why are the glasses recording when not being worn? Is the light on when it's recording?

Are the Meta employees able to turn on the streaming without people knowing? Are these videos only when someone says "Hey Meta..."? Are the Meta employees looking at every "Hey Meta..." video where someone asks AI a question?

These glasses are considered a luxury item and are worn by executives in office environments. They are worn by people in family situations. Someone could be a confidential or private moment and randomly ask AI a question; one of the primary purposes of the glasses. Are all of these being seen by Meta employees?

some_furry• 5 months ago

Good reporting, but this has always been Meta's M.O. so I'm really not surprised.

The sooner we collectively stop trusting them (and maybe even actively campaign to have the U.S. government meaningfully regulate them), the better.

Personally, I would like to see the company stop existing and its executive board destitute.

camillomiller2• 5 months ago

I already personally refuse to be around anyone who wears them. And I think establishments should just outright ban them.

dlev_pika• 5 months ago

Crazy to have 1 trillion invested in data centers, underpinned by dollar-a-day human turk ops

dehrmann2• 5 months ago

All sorts of industries are capital intensive where labor is relatively cheap. A fancy roller coaster costs $50M, but you pay college students $15 per hour to run it. Airlines spend a few thousand per day on pilots for a $300M plane.

diego_moita• 5 months ago

[flagged]

OpenWaygate• 5 months ago

"But at what cost"

binarynate• 5 months ago

At a friend's party recently, I met someone who told me that they had worked in data for Meta's glasses division and warned me never to get Meta glasses for this very reason—that the workers can see everything. They told me of a comical case where a guy pulled down his pants to look at his penis, asked "Meta, what is this?", and the AI responded that it was a thumb. XD

fullstop• 5 months ago

Ah, maybe he shouldn't have shared that. Or at least aimed for something larger than a thumb.

iJohnDoe2• 5 months ago

This means actual Meta/Facebook employees are seeing or at least hearing about actual footage. Not just third-world contractor employees.

Absolutely crazy that a Meta employee saying not to buy them. Everyone should know this right now.

SoftTalker4• 5 months ago

Better response than "Somewhat smaller than average"

maximinus_thrax• 5 months ago

I love the Facebook glasses, they seem to be the swan song of a shitty company. Young people have abandoned Facebook when their parents started hanging out, now it's all boomers and bots posting conspiracy theories.

If they think this surveillance tech is going to push the company forward, it means leadership is even more disconnected from reality than the Amazon people who greenlit the superbowl ad. It means the company is dying. Huzzah!

stavros2• 5 months ago

What the hell? I thought the videos went to the phone directly, they're all getting uploaded to Meta? I don't know why I let my guard down against that company for one second.

EDIT: Wait, is this when you use the "ask Meta" feature? I do expect that to send all the clips to a server for an LLM to process, it's not done on-device. It's not clear to me whether it's that or just all videos/photos you record with the glasses.

chwahoo5• 5 months ago

I'll confess that I like my Meta Ray Ban glasses: I love using them to listen to podcasts at the pool/beach, while riding my bike, and it's cool to snap a quick picture of my kids without pulling out my phone.

I wish this article (or Meta) were a bit clearer about the specific connection between the device settings and use and when humans get access to the images.

My settings are:

- [OFF] "Share additional data" - Share data about your Meta devices to help improve Meta products.

- [OFF] "Cloud media" - Allow your photos and videos to be sent to Meta's cloud for processing and temporary storage.

I'm not sure whether my settings would prevent my media from being used as described in the article.

Also, it's not clear which data is being used for training:

- random photos / videos taken

- only use of "Meta AI" (e.g., "Hey Meta, can you translate this sign")

As much as I've liked my Meta Ray Ban's I'm going to need clarity here before I continue using them.

TBH, if it were only use of Meta AI, I'd "get it" but probably turn that feature off (I barely use it as-is).

zhubert• 5 months ago

So you believe that you are in control?

chwahoo5• 5 months ago

I think the most likely case is: this company is labeling images from meta AI use from people who opted-in to share their data with Meta.

It's certainly possible that it's something much more surprising / sinister, but there is a fairly logical combination of settings that I could see a company could argue lets them use the data for training.

I'm also very certain that few users with these settings would expect the images to be shown to actual people, so I'm not defending Meta.

huddert• 5 months ago

Do you take them off in the bathroom? Or if the wife is feeling spontaneous?

chwahoo5• 5 months ago

They're sunglasses so I mainly wear them outside.

mylifeandtimes• 5 months ago

why do you think taking them off turns them off?

koakuma-chan• 5 months ago

https://zuckmail.vercel.app/t/harvard-dumb-fucks

awesomeusername2• 5 months ago

wow, what a cnut

shriek• 5 months ago

A simple on/off toggle isn't going to prevent them from using your data. If your data is in their server then it's going to be used one way or another. Whether in an anonymous way or shipped to where there are no privacy laws.

tux1968• 5 months ago

You might enjoy these conveniences now, but this is just the pre-enshitification stage. Soon enough, to take advantage of those features you will have advertisements integrated into your view, and your data will be scraped for whatever its worth to Meta.

dbreunig• 5 months ago

Last year they pushed out an update stating if any “Meta AI” is left on, they can access image data for training,

I turned the AI off and used them as headphones and taking videos while biking. After a couple rides, I couldn’t bring myself to put them on because people started to recognize them and I realized I didn’t want to be associated with them (people are right to assume Meta has access to what they see).

Meta Ray Bans, if kept simple, could have been a great product. They ruined them.

sheiyei2• 5 months ago

I think public shaming of that spyware should be a social norm.

SoftTalker4• 5 months ago

Those settings are IMO likely not doing what you think they are. Or might be doing strictly, precisely what they say they are.

[OFF] "Share data about your Meta devices to help improve Meta products." doesn't preclude sharing data for other purposes.

[OFF] "Allow your photos and videos to be sent to Meta's cloud for processing and temporary storage." doesn't preclude sending them to Meta's cloud for permanent storage.

sheiyei2• 5 months ago

And nothing is actually preventing Meta from doing what you refuse anyway. They might get caught, but what are you going to do?

greentea234• 5 months ago

I don't understand how a parent can be OK non-consenually uploading pictures of their children's real faces to an ad driven AI company famous for abusing people's data and manipulating children on their platforms.

echelon2• 5 months ago

I don't get how private businesses allow these. It's as creepy as Google Glass, yet we don't see the same pushback.

Is it because younger people don't care about privacy anymore?

Findecanor2• 5 months ago

It is because they don't understand the scope of the problem. People are inclined to think that other people who have treated them kindly mean well also in the long term.

chucksmash3• 5 months ago

Non-consensual? Abuse?

The terminology you chose is tasteless, loaded, and detracts from your point.

tim333• 5 months ago

Probably the majority of the planet share family photos on facebook, messenger, whatsapp or instagram - all meta properties. On the whole nothing much bad happens.

IncreasePosts• 5 months ago

My 5 year old didn't consent to going to kindergarten today. But I sent him any way. I am quite the monster it seems.

losvedir3• 5 months ago

You don't get how parents share pictures of their children with their friends and family on Facebook?

whiplash451• 5 months ago

Your setting is off cloud media until the company arbitrarily turns it on for you. Seems crazy now, won’t be ten years from now. They’re just boiling the frog all the way.

levanten• 5 months ago

After all that has been revealed to us over the past 15 years, it is really disheartening to see people still thinking that setting a few toggles will prevent these companies from abusing them.

Just continues to prove that if you solve a bit of inconvenience for them, people will let you exploit them and their families.

voidUpdate• 5 months ago

Bone conduction headphones let you listen to things while keeping your ears free, and don't upload your childrens photos to The Algorithm

Lio• 5 months ago

I don’t know how anyone has the balls to wear them in public.

They are creepy as fuck.

I’m embarrassed to wear my non-Meta Raybans now. That logo is a liability.

matsemann5• 5 months ago

I'll confess I look at Meta Glasses the same as Google Glasses: A big sign saying "punch me in the face". If you enter some premises I'm in while wearing those, I'm either leaving or they will have to come off your face somehow.

Wearing these glasses is just as obnoxious as walking around putting your phone in people's faces while recording.

nedt2• 5 months ago

If it say "punch me in the face" then you have bigger problems. And after you got recorded showing what it says to you they might be growing. Tell them what you think but don't forget "Pretty, I feel pretty, ..." - just in case.

alliao• 5 months ago

i don't trust the zuck at all, and am not naive about any of this. I'm sure the words used above are watertight in court of law but I bet you there are shenanigans in places where light don't reach

croes2• 5 months ago

In the future your kids could sue you for uploading their pictures.

socalgal22• 5 months ago

Hilarious that a post about collecting data is on a site that collects data

greatgib• 5 months ago

Privacy policies and usage terms are like the magic wand of the industry. Whatever totally bad they want to do and however they want to abuse of you and of your data, they just have to add a few unreadable lines in a 40 pages document and that's it.

No one will read it, but even if you do, most of the time the FOMO or sunk cost fallacy effect will make you go on anyway. And then it is a free pass for them.

thomassmith65• 5 months ago

I do not care about the privacy of people who buy these glasses nor their families.

I care about the innocent people whose privacy is invaded by people who buy these glasses.

hsbauauvhabzb3• 5 months ago

I’ve always been curious if they violate GDPR, HIPPA or similar, given they actively record everything you see, including European nationals and health records.

hsbauauvhabzb3• 5 months ago

Can someone explain the downvotes here? I genuinely do not understand if I’ve said something dumb or if they’re just people scoffing at what I thought might be legitimate legal rights of people?

31337Logic• 5 months ago

Holy shit! This is absolutely despicable and probably the worst tech news I've read all year. Why do people still support Meta/Facebook?!?!

Murfalo• 5 months ago

Surely this is already happening with our other devices? Not that it isn't a problem but that the game is already lost...?

ccccrrriis• 5 months ago

I got a pair as a gift and didn't look much into them but I have to be honest, I assumed any data I captured - voice, video, etc. - would be sent to their servers (to use their models) and they'd be using it for training with humans in the loop.

Tbh the only thing I really use the glasses for are listening to music or talking on the phone - so basically how you'd use airpods. I don't use airpods because I had an ear injury that prevents me from using them on my left ear, so these glasses were kinda nice for that. I really wish they didn't have a camera though because I do always feel compelled to remove them if I interact with people.

I also have to add that the quality is mediocre. They're a month old and the case has problems charging sometimes, and one of the screws is always coming loose at a hinge no matter how often I retighten that side.

nullwarp• 5 months ago

FWIW I have Bose Frames which are great and do the same thing minus the camera.

rr808• 5 months ago

I think they're dumb but my wife loves them. The video quality is surprisingly good.

TowerTall• 5 months ago

There must be a special place reserved for Mark Zuckerberg in hell

arian_• 5 months ago

Workers can see everything" means this isn't an AI privacy problem. It's a surveillance-as-a-service problem with extra steps.

pier25• 5 months ago

I really hope these flop and don’t become mainstream.

It would be a surveillance and privacy dystopian nightmare.

sharkweek• 5 months ago

I really want to make a fake PSA that suggests anyone wearing the Meta glasses is probably a pervert and should be proactively avoided/shunned.

This product cannot be allowed to exist in the type of world I want to live in.

The power structure wants these to succeed in the market for so many horrific reasons and it will require some serious societal muscle to reject them.

transitorykris• 5 months ago

It’s been done before. Send the glassholes to Molotov’s in SF. https://sf.eater.com/2014/2/26/6272945/heres-the-video-of-th...

posnet• 5 months ago

I am forever reminded of this stupid cartoon: https://youtu.be/6PY8C1KmNwM?si=_WU_lstzp_5mFrxk

zdragnar• 5 months ago

I remember people with the Google glasses being called glassholes. The fact that companies are trying again and apparently succeeding tells you just how much

A) they believe in the idea

and / or

B) how much money there is to be made having people wear them.

Smart wearables as a general category of hardware have an awful rate of success, and hardware is much more expensive to get into than software. So, there's got to be a lot of money in the data consumers will be producing.

That's the part that scares me much more so than the random perverts using them in public for unsavory candid photos.

wraptile• 5 months ago

It's sad that the gap between a "glasshole" and meta glasses is just a branded frame. If anything Meta has significantly worse public reputation now than Google during Google Glass time.

benoau• 5 months ago

B) how much money there is to be made having people wear them.

Meta have been desperately searching for “the next big walled garden” for like a decade.

The prize is clear: whatever the next big mass-consumer hardware device is with an app store attached will leech hundreds of billions in fees and enjoy absolute control over everyone building on it.

mcmcmc• 5 months ago

If this really bugs you, get involved in your local politics and get a city ordinance passed banning the use of surreptitious video recording devices including smart glasses. No reason we can’t keep these off the streets.

DonHopkins10• 5 months ago

Where is Robert Scoble, the King of the Glassholes, the AR PR Torpedo, the Patron Taint of Making Everyone Disgusted to Use Google Glass, the Sexually Harassing Victim Blaming Shameless New Venture Plugging Non Apology Apologist, posting nude photos of himself in the shower, when we need him?

Larry Page on Robert Scoble’s Google Glass stunt: ‘I really didn’t appreciate the shower photo’:

https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/15/4333656/larry-page-teases...

Scoble: an utterly tone deaf response to harassment allegations:

https://onemanandhisblog.com/2017/10/scoble-utterly-tone-dea...

The Verge‘s Adi Robertson sums it us thus:
>But his latest defense puts forward an absurd definition of sexual harassment and effectively accuses women of reporting it to fit in with the cool crowd, while claiming he’s writing in “a spirit of healing.” There’s even a tasteless plug for his latest business venture. It’s one of the most disappointing responses we’ve seen to a sexual harassment complaint, which, after the past few weeks, is a fairly remarkable achievement.

aaronbrethorst• 5 months ago

Still on X, yelling about how amazing Elon Musk is.

operatingthetan• 5 months ago

The best Robert Scoble was when he was advocating for NEC tablets (Windows XP Tablet PC Edition) on various forums in 2002 or 2003.

coliveira• 5 months ago

At this point Meta has probably the largest collection of illegal videos of underage kids in private situations on the planet. Maybe followed closely by Google with their cams that record everything even if you think they're not. If there was any concern for kids, the FBI should be stopping them right now and taking the executives to jail.

eru• 5 months ago

That seems a bit like accusing the post office of letting you send and receive banned books?

mcs5280• 5 months ago

No wonder Zuckerberg is so popular with the Epstein class

jkestner• 5 months ago

Look, they’re only keeping those videos to train their model to identify CSAM and definitely not accidentally generate it.

rps93• 5 months ago

Will we be in the same up in arms once Apple releases their AI Glasses?

How about if their glasses either...

1. Can not take pics or videos but its camera is just for AI vision?

2. All pics and videos taken through Apple's smart glasses the pics/vids of anyone not in your network (Apple already automatically list faces & sometimes names in your network under "People & Pets," and has done so for years & they are the privacy company) show as anonymous/randomized faces.

I own two pairs of Meta Glasses since 10/2023 and find them very useful to capture or record my own life experiences only. Tho I share hate for them because Meta makes trashy non-durable smart glasses that quickly become dumb glasses. A software update killed my 1st pair in March 2025 and then my next pair couldn't handle water splashes in June 2025.

bravoetch• 5 months ago

Your reaction appears to be ignorant of the real use cases for these. A friend of mine is totally blind, and uses meta glasses. He finds them incredibly useful, as do others.

amdolan• 5 months ago

In that case, the data collected should be subject to strict privacy laws.

dom2• 5 months ago

The use case for these glasses are to record everything, everywhere. That it's also helpful for people with vision impairment is a, positive, coincidence.

greentea234• 5 months ago

This makes me more sad than hopeful. Great they get use out of it, but there instead should be a medically approved HIPAA compliant device for this purpose built by scientists in the open for all to enjoy. Instead the disabled are coersed to give up all privacy of themselves and others around them both digitally and physically. And more importantly they have to give up their sovereignty over the means of their enhancement by it being closed off and eventually enshittified for customers yet opened up for exploitation by facebook and their corporate and government customers.

Sadly the disabled have no choice but to accept the status quo, and facbook gets to virtue signal while holding humanity back another cycle by not selling us an open platform that would actually help people at scale not just now but forever.

xvector• 5 months ago

These are amazing for vacations and recording any event where you want to be truly present without looking at the event through a phone screen.

kulahan• 5 months ago

4chan once tricked a number of people into microwaving their iPhones by claiming it was a new feature for fast charging. This probably isn't too hard if you've got enough friends or fans in on the joke.

hkt• 5 months ago

As a regular glasses wearer, I really do dread the years ahead when I get mistaken for a glasshole. I suspect it won't be pretty.

thunderfork• 5 months ago

Fun fact: all advertiser chat support agents at Meta used to (still might) have full super-read on FB. When you read "workers" in this headline, don't think "devs", think "legions of contracted-out T1 support staff"

medi8r6• 5 months ago

It is worse:

The workers in Kenya say that it feels uncomfortable to go to work. They tell us about deeply private video clips, which appear to come straight out of Western homes, from people who use the glasses in their everyday lives.

medi8r6• 5 months ago

This simply needs to be criminalized.

Basicially it is a peeping tom.

cl0ckt0wer• 5 months ago

Oh look a flock competitor

sidcool• 5 months ago

Despite the historical misadventures of Meta, if people still use their products with an expectation of privacy, it's on the people.

DavidPiper• 5 months ago

Ah yes, while everyone was focused on Flock cameras...

For many more reasons than pervert behaviour, I agree that this kind of tool cannot coexist with healthy society. "Glassholes" was a delightful portmanteau, but I suspect normalising a term like "pedo glasses" will probably put people off them way sooner and faster. At the very least it identifies the product and not the person as the problem.

DonHopkins10• 5 months ago

Trump-Epstein Glasses

ajr0• 5 months ago

pedo peekers

notpushkin4• 5 months ago

Has the submission title just been editorialized? I swear I’ve seen it mentioning data collection before, now it’s just bland.

skeptic_ai• 5 months ago

The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything (svd.se) 700 points by sandbach 5 hours ago | flag | hide | 402 comments

notpushkin4• 5 months ago

Yes! https://web.archive.org/web/20260303011913/https://news.ycom...

dang, could you check what went wrong here? The new title doesn’t represent the article at all. (edit: sent an email, too)

sandbach, if you still have access to editing, maybe you could change it back?

deaux8• 5 months ago

Yes it has, in a way that goes directly against HN guidelines. The page title is "Meta’s AI Smart Glasses and Data Privacy Concerns: Workers Say “We See Everything”".

tomhow4• 5 months ago

We just updated the title to “Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns”.

deaux8• 5 months ago

Why was the title changed from "The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything" to "A hidden workforce behind Meta’s new smart glasses"? It doesn't go against any guidelines:

Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important.
If the title includes the name of the site, please take it out, because the site name will be displayed after the link.
If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."
Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

The literal URL slug is

metas-ai-smart-glasses-and-data-privacy-concerns-workers-say-we-see-everything

The page title is

Meta’s AI Smart Glasses and Data Privacy Concerns: Workers Say “We See Everything”

The new title goes against the guidelines by editorializing. I've never seen HN do this before, what's going on here?

disqard• 5 months ago

I'm with you. I thought the title captured and represented the OG article accurately.

What's going on?

camillomiller2• 5 months ago

@dang do you care explaining? This looks really terrible.

Gnadgnad3• 5 months ago

This tells us Meta's strategic focus for the next several quarters. This must hit a very expensive nerve.

Gnadgnad3• 5 months ago

It's very telling that this post has been sent straight to the bottom.

incompatible• 5 months ago

Now it's "Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns", which is a little vague.

tomhow4• 5 months ago

Terms like "hidden" and "see everything" are in a title are clickbait. That's why the title would have been changed.

I've changed it again to match the article's original title, removing the clickbait part.

deaux8• 5 months ago

Terms like "hidden" and "see everything" are in a title are clickbait.

The one containing "hidden" is the one you apparently changed it to originally - I don't think GP can, nor has any reason to - so you initially changed it to.. clickbait?

It seems a serious reach to call "see everything" clickbait.

First-ever in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe, study finds

Currently 9th on the front page, is "is safe" also clickbait, since surely it's not 100.0% safe, just like with "see everything" it's surely not every single frame?

The large number of replies this renaming got in a short timeframe is because it's not in line with what we're used to when it comes to title changes on HN.

tobr• 5 months ago

For the record, now it has changed again, to ’Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns’, which is even more milquetoast.

Parent and another comment reacting to this change have also been (artificially, I must assume) sunk from top to below gems like ’Too funny that the subcontractor working for meta is “sama”’.

stevefan1999• 5 months ago

I would really love to use smart glasses for DevOps, especially Grafana dashboards

halapro• 5 months ago

To a technical person, this is obvious. AI doesn't happen on the glasses, it doesn't happen on your crappy phone, it happens online. Live streaming, which is also a feature, by definition sends everything it captures to someone else's computer (ahem, the cloud).

Yesterday I saw a Instagram reel of a guy asking "what am I looking at" while between his girlfriend's legs. Congrats, some Indian guy saw her too.

The core piece of information that is missing or unclear is whether this collection happens also when not actively and knowingly sending data to the cloud.

The glasses let me record videos locally, can Facebook see any frames of them? This is the question that needs to be answered. Everything is else is nonsense like "omg Amazon hears what I tell Alexa"

yieldcrv• 5 months ago

"my spying glasses are spying on me"

_ZeD_• 5 months ago

Sooo... I really should start keepin running this[1] all the time...

https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses/

deaux8• 5 months ago

Page title - Meta’s AI Smart Glasses and Data Privacy Concerns: Workers Say “We See Everything”

Original HN title - The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything

Editorialized HN title v1, 7 hours after post - A hidden workforce behind Meta’s new smart glasses

Editorialized HN title v2 - Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns

nubg• 5 months ago

lmao what's going on? hn cucking to meta pressure?

notpushkin4• 5 months ago

tomhow has just responded to my email. If I understand correctly, the HN mods feel that the “see everything” bit would cause less civil discussion in the comments.

I find v2 title okay-ish: it’s derived from the page title, and you can see what it’s about (as compared to v1). It doesn’t capture the degree of what Meta can see, though.

gverrilla4• 5 months ago

What did you expect from Y Combinator? Stop being naive and delulu.

tomkarho• 5 months ago

There are no privacy concerns because there IS no privacy. /s

umpalumpaaa3• 5 months ago

The title is now “She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says”

kgarten• 5 months ago

I think this coverage feels very similar to the way Google Glass was treated back in the early 2010s ... there’s a grain of legitimate concern, but the article oversells what these glasses actually do and stokes alarm in a way that goes beyond the available facts.

Workers annotating data for AI might see sensitive content captured by smart glasses. But the leap from that to “we see everything” and framing it like some dystopian panopticon mirrors the early Google Glass panic, where the concerns often outran what the device actually could do.

Legitimate concerns shouldn’t be dismissed, but neither should they be inflated to create a new “Glass-forked-into-Big-Brother” narrative unless the evidence genuinely supports that level of risk ...

jspdown• 5 months ago

Don't you need to obtain consent before filming random people in the street? I already feel uncomfortable when someone takes a photo in public and I happen to be in it, but this type of device takes things to an entirely different level. With smart glasses, there's no visible cue that you're being recorded. No phone held up, no camera in sight. I'm questioning the legality of this in Europe, where privacy laws tend to be stricter. In the meantime, should I just assume that anyone wearing these glasses is always filming? And would I be within my rights to ask them to stop the moment I notice them?

itake• 5 months ago

No, for most countries

I mean, otherwise countries couldn’t use security cameras

Y-bar2• 5 months ago

Given that the article is from a Swedish publication, you often need prior permission to use a security camera which could take images of the genera public. Much of this is regulated with GDPR.

https://www.imy.se/en/individuals/camera-surveillance/

fabbbbb• 5 months ago

What’s the chain of reasoning that brought you to this conclusion?

contubernio2• 5 months ago

In Spain a private entity can't put a security camera that points into public spaces ...

stbtrax3• 5 months ago

These glasses have a light when recording. You can buy many hidden recording glasses that are much more discrete with no light. Are you also paranoid when someone has their smartphone in their shirt pocket with the camera exposed?

lewo• 5 months ago

On the french trains, you can sit opposite someone else. I'm feeling really uncomfortable when this person scrolls on its phone, with the phone back camera pointing to me for hours.

I sometime ask this person to hide the camera and they generally understand my feeling.

amszmidt• 5 months ago

In Sweden, you're allowed to film/photograph in public without the need for any consent.

There is (in general) no expectation of privacy in public in Europe. How you can use the material though, is a different matter ...

pfortuny• 5 months ago

Privacy of your image, not of your voice, at least as regards recordings.

Hamuko• 5 months ago

Pretty much the same in Finland. You are allowed to film/photograph as much as you want in a public place, but publishing the material might be against the law depending on the contents. Particularly the law regarding "dissemination of information that violates privacy". It's fine to publish a photo of people walking on the street, but you'll probably get into trouble for uploading an arrest to YouTube where the suspect is recognizable.

consp• 5 months ago

In a general rule you can record. But sending it to Meta AI would be a AVG (GDPR) violation in the Netherlands if no consent is given as you share it with a third party. There is also the difference of recording a public place with people in the background and clearly recording someone: The first is fine, the second is not (without consent). You also cannot disable the recording light, doing so would put you up for libel en decency lawsuits (and libel and public decency can be criminal, not just misdemeanors).

So if you take a video of specific people looking at flowers at the Keukenhof you would have to ask them for permission if you are recording them primarily and publish it but recording for yourself is fine as it is a clearly public space. If you take a picture of all the flower and catch some people in it in the background you are fine. If you do it in a place where people do not expect it they can ask you to remove the video and they have to (e.g. in a restaurant when you are eating as it is not expected to be recorded there).

There are some exceptions for journalism, law enforcement and public good. I doubt strongly any Meta (AI) post would classify for that.

There is also the small caveat that if you can avoid recording innocent bystanders you must. E.g. putting up a doorbell camera and pointing it to the street instead of your door is bad as it's easily avoidable by putting it top down.

matsemann5• 5 months ago

Note that there is a difference between being allowed to take a photograph, and being allowed to share it. Unless you're threatening or harassing, you're mostly free to photograph as you want. But you might not be allowed to publish it.

rubzah2• 5 months ago

An important distinction is that you are allowed to film/photograph when you are actively doing it (so the glasses do belong in that category). You're not allowed to set up a camera to autonomously film/photograph outside of your own private property.

Besides that there is the issue of publishing said footage, as others point out.

Coeur• 5 months ago

Many countries in Europe do indeed require consent. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#France

anhner• 5 months ago

this page is about you do with the photos, not if you are allowed to take them.

perlgeek• 5 months ago

In Germany, you don't need permission for recording image material (including moving images) in public places, though usage of the material might be restricted.

However, audio recording of conversations is prohibited.

fergie• 5 months ago

I'm pretty confident that these would be illegal in public spaces in Norway.

iugtmkbdfil834• 5 months ago

US here. Definitely more permissive than any EU nation. Public space typically means free for all in terms of recording[1]. The incident I link is relevant as we are bound to see a whole new bunch of 'content creators' going for various new ways to engage the public.

https://patch.com/illinois/lakezurich/il-student-punches-pro...

graemep• 5 months ago

In the UK the general rule is that you can take pictures and video in public places (there are exceptions and restrictions).

If you could not take photos of people in public places it would imply banning a lot of things that have been acceptable for a long time.

u1hcw9nx• 5 months ago

Filming vs. Publishing

Filming is legal. In public spaces (streets, parks), there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy." You do not need permission to point a camera. The exceptions are usually for offensive or harassing type of filming.

Publishing is regulated. In EU, once you share the footage , you are "processing personal data" under GDPR. There are also exceptions where publishing without permission is legal. Legitimate Interest (security footage or incidental background), Public Interest/Journalism, and Artistic Expression.

Generally you must ask permission to publish, not to film. Although asking permission to film is good ethical principle too.

chokma• 5 months ago

Note that there is a difference between Panoramafreiheit (freedom to record a public building / space with people walking around) versus recording the street before your house with an always-on security camera (almost always forbidden).

Even having a fake camera pointing at a public space can be forbidden as it creates surveilance pressure on people using the space.

egorfine• 5 months ago

Don't you need to obtain consent

Different laws in different countries.

before filming random people in the street?

That would make taking pictures impossible, so no, such a requirement cannot be reasonably() codified into law.

() By reasonably I mean in a way to be actually followed. Of course there are lots of impossible laws created by politicians to cater to their fan base.

arcadianalpaca2• 5 months ago

The recording light argument keeps coming up but I don't buy it. I can't tell if someone's glasses have a tiny LED on from across a room, and neither can anyone else.Under GDPR it's a on Meta to handle consent, not on me to squint at someone's face to figure out if I'm being filmed.

randycupertino2• 5 months ago

Also creeps can just easily search to see how to disable the light anyways.

arcadianalpaca2• 5 months ago

True, can't even be taken for a real safeguard to begin with. It's there so Meta can say they tried :)

OrangeMusic3• 5 months ago

This argument is invalid. Creeps exist, and if they want to discreetly film stuff, they have many great options (hidden miniature cameras).

In fact why on earth would they choose the Ray Ban glasses which are getting highly suspicious?

Juliate• 5 months ago

Likewise, are there any startup for wearable devices that visually jam or impair digital cameras?

instahotstar• 5 months ago

These glasses are godd one

de6u99er• 5 months ago

It's the same issue with Tesla collecting camera feeds through their cars to use it for macbine learning.

Those videos can also be a used to track people. IMHO each Tesla owner sending video data to Tesla's data centers is violating privacy laws!

StrauXX• 5 months ago

They are! This Tesla feature is illegal to use in Germany and Austria.

[1] (in German) https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000215526/aktueller-fal...

notyetmachine• 5 months ago

Ghanaian authorities are seeking the arrest of a Russsian national who was using glasses to record himself picking up, and sleeping with, women in Ghana and Kenya. He uploaded them to social media and telegram. Was quite the story on African tech twitter last month.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wn5p299eko

wahnfrieden• 5 months ago

Post titled has been repeatedly edited to make it vague and to remove all content of the concern

Actual title is “She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, [Meta] Employee Says” and subtitle begins with “Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded”

Suspicious moderation behaviors on this one

bryanrasmussen• 5 months ago

smart glasses are a potential great boon for mankind, really, only both of the iterations we have had have been from two companies that are arguably detrimental to humanity.

cubefox• 5 months ago

The article is somewhat disingenuous because it "forgets" to mention the bright LED on the glasses while filming. This makes statements in the article that people don't know about video recording much less believable.

rodwyersoftware4• 5 months ago

If you're in public you have no privacy by default.

alkonaut9• 5 months ago

That's something created/accepted as a reasonable state of affairs simply because no one could imagine the resources needed to record and track every person everywhere (Or, we could - but it was fiction). Being in public was considered seen by others. Perhaps an occasional photo being taken.

Perhaps the old ideas that "you have no privacy in public" or "if you can be seen then you can be recorded" and so on just need to be revised? Should we reconsider what it means to be "in public"? Perhaps people should be granted some form of privacy protection also when "in public"?

rodwyersoftware4• 5 months ago

Better to worry about the Africans running around raping our European women rather than if someone is recording you for 5 seconds while walking your dog.

nkrisc3• 5 months ago

Not all technology is good.

bys_exe• 5 months ago

Meta glasses will scare people in public because they think they are being recorded even though they are not..

KaiserPro• 5 months ago

What I don't understand is where this data is coming from. Is it actually Meta's raybans or is it project aria (https://www.projectaria.com/)

Because I didn't think that the data was uploaded to meta by default, when you take a video with the raybans.

More over, I didn't think that those glasses could record more than 2.5 minutes.

The point still remains, the devil in detail of the "privacy" policy.

breve• 5 months ago

Meta's business model is premised on intensive and pervasive user surveillance.

When you use Meta's products and services you are tagged, tracked, and commodified like an animal. You are cattle.

The question isn't whether or not Meta's AI smart glasses raise data privacy concerns.

The question is why use anything from Meta in the first place?

sneak• 5 months ago

The answer: because Meta has deliberately and intentionally inserted themselves into the social fabric so they can use network effects to surveil you sell your personal relationships back to you. They bought up Instagram and WhatsApp to the same end, then Oculus. Even Carmack fell for the lie. Meta never wants you talking to anyone in any medium without them knowing about it, because it allows them to sell more and more ads, because nobody is going to give up communications with their friends and family.

It's not that complicated. Most people just go where the other users are. They "have nothing to hide". Their thoughtless decisions actively make society worse for everyone else, one user at a time. Even tech people who know the scam throw up their hands and express how impossible it would be to get their kids' soccer parents or PTA groups to abandon WhatsApp groups or FB Messenger for something privacy-respecting. The tyranny of the installed base.

Go to a place that didn't have deliberate large scale society-wide anti-smoking programs. Basically everyone starts smoking at age 15 and never stops. People regularly and typically, en masse, work against their own interests in ways that seem like "not a big deal".

Suddenly, you can't make a doctor's appointment in Europe without a WhatsApp account (and agreeing to the Meta ToS in the process). (Why Europe casually ceded the basic day to day communications of many of its b2c sectors to an American company without so much as a fight is another matter.)

alpineman• 5 months ago

Yep, that's why I refuse to give Whatsapp (and when I still used them, Instagram and Messenger), full access to my Camera reel.

For some reason they keep asking aggressively for permission for the whole thing. I wonder why...

pbmonster• 5 months ago

Interesting article, but I wonder why the journalists didn't go all the way. Sure, Meta isn't going to comment when you ask them what data they have. But this is in the EU, just hit them with a Subject Access Request under GDPR.

Would be really interesting to create a completely new account, use the glasses with all upload settings off for a month, and then SAR request and see what they have...

gverrilla4• 5 months ago

Usage of creep-ware won't be tolerated in the social groups I take part on.

We will shame hard anyone who uses this sh1t.

shevy-java4• 5 months ago

Understandable, and not disagreeing per se, though hard-shaming is a strange strategy. But, ignoring this, people record videos and upload on youtube. While this is not quite the same as Meta-spy-glasses where people work for Suckerburg suddenly, people still upload videos on youtube, instagram etc... - is that very different to the spyglass? I think it is not that different, viewed more objectively. It's not the same, granted, but also not that different.

gverrilla4• 5 months ago

Strange strategy? Are you new to humanity?

shevy-java4• 5 months ago

Well - don't wear their spyglasses. It's really not that hard.

You can still record stuff without spyglasses. People do that on youtube too, e. g. first amendment audits. It's not that different to the spyglasses, except that you can cut off Meta from the process (admittedly youtube creates another problem which is called Google; it would be nice if we could have platforms without corporate overlord, but the financial aspect may still be an issue that requires solving. I don't have a good way to solve that, as I am also having a 100% zero ads policy aka using ublock origin mandatorily. And Google declared total war againts ublock origin, we all know that.)

Schlagbohrer• 5 months ago

I look forward to the day when I can have a fully FOSS, trustworthy pair of smart glasses, made by people who genuinely want to and do put user privacy first. But until then, no fucking way. I don't even like keeping my cellphone in the same room as me when I'm at home.

3efr4444444• 5 months ago

Retest

kgwxd• 5 months ago

Why in the world did they even try this again? What market is there for it beyond creeps? Or is that the hot thing right now?

krapp• 5 months ago

What market is there for it beyond creeps? Or is that the hot thing right now?

I mean... have you been reading the news?

rsynnott4• 5 months ago

See also: Twitter's csam/revenge porn generator. Pervert market is apparently big right now.

andy_ppp• 5 months ago

We need safe spaces where you aren't constantly living inside the panopticon...

zombot• 5 months ago

Who would even expect any privacy from the Facebook mafia? The rename to "Meta" doesn't obscure the fact that they are bottomfeeders.

rsynnott4• 5 months ago

Can we just get Robert Scoble to come back and destroy these, please?

dhab• 5 months ago

Conditioning the crowd gradually towards being monetised in some of the most egregious ways - first pay for the glasses, then pay with revelations of private life sold to government (ICE?), business (private insurance) and so on. Super evil.

And despite this, there is no strong will to detach from what they produce - in the beginning or later when it is considered like cultural fabric. That’s how good their tactics is.

And for the pay one gets working for them - screw the world! I won’t use it anywhere near my loved ones - but will build it

mjbonanno• 5 months ago

The privacy angle here is fascinating. Curious if anyone has tried running the on-device model locally yet?

giwook• 5 months ago

What kinds of defensive measures can you even take against such a blatant and yet inevitable invasion of privacy that don't involve you just completely covering your face whenever you go out in public?

zouhair• 5 months ago

I am confused that people act so offended. What do people expect? Meta and all tech companies do not believe in privacy for anyone but themselves. Isn't our info how they make their money?

guywithahat• 5 months ago

To their credit, all interesting consumer tech introduces privacy concerns because to do interesting things you usually have to integrate tightly with someone's life. I'm just not that concerned about filming sunglasses, in fact I'm kind of excited

jameson• 5 months ago

Everyone should assume that _anything_ connected to internet will get uploaded to internet and someone within the company will have permission to review the contents regardless of what the policy says.

1. Debugging for troubleshooting.

2. Analytical for making product better.

3. Bugs that collects your info when it shouldn't.

4. Bugs from 3rd party vendor if company uses those.

5. Insecure process. Getting access to a private content within the company is trivial due to coarse permission model.

Source: I worked at two well known social media companies. Trust & Safety and data infra teams

robotburrito• 5 months ago

Often I hear. “these are so cool! It’s a shame meta makes them.” All of their pivots will fail because of their track record IMo.

lenerdenator• 5 months ago

Meta
Privacy

Pick one.

Mulhimfy• 5 months ago

The privacy implications here go beyond just the recording light. The real concern is how Meta trains AI models on captured data without explicit consent — and most users have no idea this is happening.

BarryGuff• 5 months ago

How come Meta's glasses are still a thing when Google's glasses got shut down for privacy reasons? What's the difference?

Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns

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