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).
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.
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."
Right, that's the section I was confused by because it was in the context of an experiment trying to use the AI stuff without an Internet connection, which obviously won't work. The article is using the "shared onwards" terminology to refer to at least inference. But the inference part is uninteresting to me, and the data labeling is. The article doesn't really separate those out.
>> 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.
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.
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.
my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case. you have to intentionally modify the glasses to be able to surreptitiously record.
> my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case.
I remember when the glasses came out and this was tested: if you tape it over before starting the recording it refuses, but if you tape it after starting it will happily continue to record. I don't know if they changed it, but that is how it use to be.
The glasses have in the same hole a led light and a small light sensor (similar to the ones used in monitors to set up auto-brightness).
On start recording the glasses check if the light sensor is above a certain threshold, if it is then it starts recording and turns on the led light.
So, if you start recording and then cover the hole, it keeps recording because the check only happens on start. Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor, which is a terrible design choice.
And to disable the light is as easy as using a small drill bit and breaking either the light sensor module or the led light. They can detect if it's been tampered with and they put a giant notice saying the privacy light is not working but they still let you record anyways lol.
> Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor,
The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
> The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
True but then that would mean a blinking led light instead of a constant turned on led light, which is a different product requirement from what it currently does.
I don't think the cheap light sensor would have a fast enough polling rate for that. And if you increase the polling rate I will just put a phosphorescent sticker that absorbs and reflects the light coming out of the led with a good enough afterglow that the photoresistor will still pick up as some value and still allow for recording.
Also what is the implication here? If you cover the hole accidentally for one microsecond do you invalidate the whole recording? Does it need to be covered for more than one second, two seconds, ten?
All of that for what? So that in 2 years we can have chinese off-brand clones for 50 dollars that offer no security mechanisms anyways?
We all need to understand this is the new normal, being able to be recorded anywhere anytime. Just like you can get punched in the street anywhere anytime. We only act on things that can be proven to have caused you prejudice in court.
We successfully shamed people out of wearing Google glasses. We also mostly have social norms about when recording with your smart phone is ok. We don't need to accept defeat about these glasses just yet
I feel like it was pretty common to have the red light blinking on and off every second when recording. In that time where it is off during that cycle it would make sense to preform the sensor checks.
Sounds like it would be pretty easy to fake out with a custom circuit too, for those that are willing to go beyond ‘whoops how did that happen’ levels.
Taping can not be done? But if there are guides on the www for this, is this a true statement? To me it is a difficult statement because ... taping can be done in many ways. I don't see how light can magically pass through it?
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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."
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.
It's not "smearing" to use Zuckerberg's own words in a discussion of his character, and this is far from the only example of things he's done or said in the past 20 years that would lead a reasonable person to call into question his moral fiber.
It remains, however, a popular point of reference because:
1. It's fast and easy to read and digest.
2. The blunt language leaves little room for speculation about his feelings and intent at the time.
3. A lot of people understand that as Zuckerberg's wealth exploded, he surrounded himself with people (coaches, stylists, PR professionals, etc.) who are paid handsomely to rehabilitate and manage his image. Therefore, his pre-wealth behavior gives insight into who he really is.
People can change but based on Facebook's actions vis-a-vis privacy, mental health, etc. there's little evidence that Zuckerberg has gone from treating his users like "dumb f...." to treating them like human beings.
If we're going to talk about quotes, here's one: "money amplifies who you are".
When a man changes it is on him to prove that he has changed. Has Zuck atoned himself in any way? Has Meta?
I'm a big believer in second chances and letting people rehabilitate, but there's no evidence the Meta or Zuck have changed for the better. Meanwhile, *there is plenty of evidence that suggests he has only become more uncaring and deceptive, as Meta has only become more invasive over time*, the article itself being one such example.
So I do believe Zuck has changed, but not in the direction that we should applaud and/or forgive him. I've only seen him change in the way that should make us more concerned and further justify the hatred. A man may change, but he does not always change for the better.
No, you didn't suggest that. You suggested that the quote is not representative of who he is now.
We'd need a lot more context (and words) for us to understand that sentence as anything other than defending him. At best you're giving him the benefit of doubt.
I think his actions speak for themselves. Facebook, effectively completely controlled by Zuckerberg, has consistently taken actions that erode privacy and degrade mental health.
And no, not every young person has the attitude that Zuckerberg demonstrated in his "dumb f...s" comment. If my son or daughter was behaving like that in their late teens/early twenties I would be ashamed and feel like a failure as a parent.
There's a big difference between "someone said something stupid as a kid"... "but now has changed and is a totally different person" and "is doing the same things but now knows how not to say the quiet part out loud"
Well, they don't, but this is a particularly damning statement and it's age is more of a feature than a flaw because it shows a long history of anti-social disdain for humanity.
I hear this rebuttal a lot; here's why it doesn't work for me:
I'm the exact same age as Zuckerberg. When I first read this quote, it struck me as a really gross mindset and a point of view that I could neither relate to nor have sympathy for. I would not have said (or thought) those things when I was his age. Fundamentally, this is a demonstration of poor character.
Now, people do grow and change. We've all said or done things that we regret. Life can be really hard, at times, for most of us, and more often than not young arrogant guys eventually learn some humility and grace and empathy after they confront the real world and experience the inevitable ups and downs of life.
But Zuckerberg had no such experience. His life during and after the time when he said this was one of accelerating material success and validation. The scam he was so heartlessly bragging about in that statement actually worked, and he became one of the richest men in the world. So my expectation of the likelihood that he matured away from this mindset is much lower than it would be for someone like you or me.
(And, as others have said in this thread, there's ample evidence from his subsequent decisions to support this)
>it is perhaps also damning that any time someone wants to smear zuck they have to reach 20 years into the past.
It is perhaps not, and perhaps a bit disingenuous to claim so in good faith, as if it exceeds your abilities to search for the list of facebook scandals in the decades following and see that the behavior is often consistent with this quote. Even if you choose to ignore all that, it's also not very reasonable to expect troves of juicier quotes after all the C-suites, lawyers, and HR departments showed up locked everything down with corporate speak. I'm sure if facebook were to be so kind as to leak all the messages and audio of zuck's internal comms since that time people would be able to have many other juicy quotes to work with.
It is often referenced because it's the best quote that represents the trailblazing era of preying on users' undying thirst for convenience in order to package their private data as a product.
Thank you for saying this. I would not find a better way to word the response myself.
"It is perhaps not, and perhaps a bit disingenuous to claim so in good faith, as if it exceeds your abilities to search for the list of facebook scandals in the decades following and see that the behavior is often consistent with this quote.
It is often referenced because it's the best quote that represents the trailblazing era of preying on users' undying thirst for convenience in order to package their private data as a product.
These sentences are deliciously delightful to read in this era of writing whose blandness and sloppiness is only amplified by LLM-driven "assistance".
It is difficult to be pithy without being bitter, but your writing achieves it within the span of a single comment. If you have a blog, I hope you share it!
You would have a good point if what Meta is doing now wasn’t far worse than what Zuck himself is describing in those comments, all while Zuck has remained at the helm the entire time.
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.
I've tried to learn and grow from the stupid comments of my youth. I haven't been involved in a long list of scandals directly related to the ideas those comments expressed, and if I was, it would be pretty clear that I didn't learn or grow at all.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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.
It’s not a controversial viewpoint that a child can’t consent to their information being uploaded permanently to the internet, even by a parent. This is because, as an adult, I can’t retroactively remove my presence from the internet. Seems silly in trivial cases (school website), but is quite severe in others (bathtub photos).
It’s also not controversial to paint the harmful, profit-seeking actions of companies upon minors as “abusive” (e.g. tobacco firms).
If anything, your knee-jerk response at their rhetoric raises eyebrows: why would you go to bat for a company who by nearly all public measures is fundamentally evil in aim and structure?
Tasteless to you, factually correct to me. Both correct actually.
Look, you do your kids, literally nobody in the world cares how great or messed up individuals they will become, the result always match the process so its pretty obvious.
But your freedom to do whatever stops when you start infringing rights of me and my family. Right to privacy is, where I live and most sane places, enforceable by law. Also, its called not being an asshole or similar rougher terms.
- the vast majority of people are not creeps and are not discreetly filming random people
- the vast majority of people are not interesting, and nobody is filming them
- today, in a public space, everybody already has lots or cameras pointing to them (e.g. anyone with a phone), without a way to know if they're being filmed. So this is not a new 'problem'.
- banning smart glasses doesn't make sense if you're not also banning all devices that can film discreetly (so, smartphones)
- 'creeps' use hidden miniature cameras, not glasses with an obvious camera right there on their very face
Incorrect points, there should be just first and the rest is just fluff.
Try taking a photo of somebody with your phone. Usage will definitely look like you are snapping a picture, nobody walks around with phones straight up. The result is, when you take pics with phone, most often its obvious. When you insult people by not asking, they see it and react negatively.
When you point to people with smart glasses, nobody knows do they and that seems to be the point. Or is it beeping and blinking some led to make everybody aware? I don't think so.
Also, we live in society where smart doorbell for which it shouldn't be technically possible to upload any pics to cloud due to not having subscription still did that, and from major manufacturer. Security is a moot point, quadruple that for facebook / meta who are consistent assholes regarding breaking security and privacy to scoop any possible data points for further advertising. The slaps on wrist they receive is just cost of doing business.
> Try taking a photo of somebody with your phone. Usage will definitely look like you are snapping a picture, nobody walks around with phones straight up.
I urge you to visit any big city and see for yourself how wrong you are. I see it at least every time every day just during my barely 20-25min subway commute to work.
And that's the most unremarkable the most uninteresting place and scenario here. Any big park, any even remotely touristy location, any public square, any concert/sports venue, and even an overwhelmingly large proportion of restaurants are like that.
> It's as creepy as Google Glass, yet we don't see the same pushback.
Didn't it come out that the pushback against google glasses was in part made by PR companies on behalf of their competition? I remember reading something along those lines.
>>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.
He's scrubbed it from his blog and even Internet Archive, but it was well covered and widely quoted all over:
I think you're on to something! Maybe Meta paid Scoble to embarrass Google Glass, and now Google is paying him to embarrass Meta AI Smart Glasses too! Great work if you can get somebody to finance your serial sexual harassment scandals.
I’ve banned them from our office, for the same reason that I’d tell someone deliberately aiming their phone camera at the screen all day to knock it off. In an office setting, you have to treat these as industrial espionage tools, either by choice of the wearer or of a remote person controlling them.
On the other hand, EVERY young person in my circle (my kids and their friends) is insanely privacy aware. All of that means ... we're not part of the young people anymore?
There are bubbles, you are obviously in one if you do not know any privacy concerned under 25. I know 15 year olds who are extreme privacy freaks, then I care about it so it might be easier to find those people. I do find that it is the people that I think are least likely are the one who are the most extreme.
I'm pretty sure they care who takes pictures or videos of them.
Try going on a train and taking pictures of a young woman or man.
The only difference is these are less noticeable.
Google Glass failed because they made the user look like they were wearing a high tech computer on their face ala Dragon Ball Z. It looked odd. Meta and Snap learned from this, but it had nothing to do with smartphone cameras not being part of daily life.
The first iPhone was 2007. Google Glass came out in 2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know some of the criticism of Meta: many people don't like the way their products are optimized for engagement. I've heard about their weird AI bots interacting on their platform as if they were people. And I know people of all political stripes have had complaints about content moderation and their algorithm.
But all of that is within the bounds of the law and their terms of service.
None of it would remotely approach something like: bypassing the well-advertised features in the glasses that show when the camera is in use and secretly recording things to train AI. It's hard to imagine any company's lawyers approving something like that. (this sounds like what many commenters believe is happening)
FWIW, I suspect this is the relevant section of the Privacy policy:
> "When you use the Meta AI service on your AI Glasses (if available for your device), we use your information, like Media and audio recordings of your voice to provide the service."
Meta has consistently and repeatedly shown an absolute lack of respect for user privacy for basically as long as they’ve existed as a company. I’m honestly not certain there’s anything fully out of the question as far as things they might do, regardless of what their policies might say.
They bought a “privacy” VPN app and used it to harvest data, then abused Apple’s enterprise app deployments to continue to ship the app after it was banned from the app store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
You missed the cases where the facebook app ran a local webserver on your smartphone which the facebook ad trackers would send data to to be able to track you across all websites, breaking GDPR laws and circumventing browser third-party cookie controls?
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> you are allowed to film/photograph when you are actively doing it
Does it really count as "actively doing it" when the glasses are constantly filming while you do other stuff.
With a phone/camera people can see you are filming or taking pictures.
In many countries the shutter needs to make a sound when taking pictures.
For video surveilance cameras a noticeable sign or sticker is needed.
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.
People send their private photos to their private cloud backups with the reasonable expectation that those photos remain private and therefore not a privacy violation.
If it transpired Google or Apple had staff looking through people's cloud photo backups, yes this would be considered a violation because "cloud backup" is framed as a personal solution and not a hosting or processing solution.
Yes, actually the AVG (GDPR) is very broad in what it considers personal data.
Sadly that means it is not enforced well since it is too broad to be enforced in a meaningful way. And therefore it is violated A LOT, both by companies or people since no one can be bothered!
AVG (GDPR) includes the following things as personal data: name, address, phone number, passport photo, information about someone's behavior on websites, allergies, customer or staff numbers, recognizable recordings and more.
Rule of thumb, any information that can be used to relate a specific person.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
That's quite an antagonistic way to request an explanation, particularly as it seems straightforward:
If you needed consent to film people in the street, security cameras (in public places) couldn't be used. They _are_ used. So it must not be the case that you need consent to film people in the street. Assuming there is not just widespread lawbreaking, I suppose.
The difference is if you are actively filming, or the camera is set up to film by itself. Security cameras are in the latter category and therefore can only be used on your own property (you can allow someone else to do it on your own property, such as a security firm).
Depends on a country, but yes, police generally has more privileges in that regard. The laws here are also different for casual public filming vs. permanent camera or otherwise targeted filming (without consent) in public space. It also matters what you do with the material.
I actually don't know if businesses are anything special compared to individuals in that regard. They can, of course, have security cameras filming their private properties (like individuals can) as long as they are open about it. And again, they can't use or spread the material however they want.
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.
Only for stationary cameras. Filming/photographing with a non-stationary camera is allowed as long as it is not in a sensitive situation (in their home, in the toilet/changing room/etc).
So I can mount my security camera on a WallE-like chassis to randomly drive around my property and I am no longer under the same strict regulation? What exactly made you come to that conclusion when IMY considers things like dashcams to be under the regulations of privacy and GDPR?
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
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.
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.”
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.
Surely though there is some type of survival instinct still awake and alive in the hearts and minds of men and women. We are a very aggressive species. Surely something would awaken and tell you "you should be quiet now" and "your next and only words should be lawyer". Surely...
This could very well still be the case with the people at Meta. It's just that the things that still trigger this instinct in them are far worse than what's being discussed here, so they've become desensitized, this is on the tamer end of the spectrum, and this falls below the threshold that would trigger those instincts.
Exactly, people are distracted by nothing being done about the Epstein files, a genocide being committed out in the open for 2+ years, fascist private army running around abducting DoorDash drivers and shooting people in the head. It's a great time for anyone wanting to do a society-level bad thing.
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
>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.
But the hand is composed of digits. You could start by pointing at them and laughing, then flipping them off, then holding your hand up to their face so they can talk to it.
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.
Slapping a pair of glasses that are recording you, processing your face, sending biometrics and images back to one of the worst privacy offenders on the planet off of the face of someone who is willingly doing all that without asking your permission is a perfectly appropriate reaction. Put your shoulder into it.
I'd rather we normalize that than adversarial fashion.. but that's probably what you were looking for.
Yeah sure you are going to start slapping people on the street mr badass guy. That’s all cool and fun until someone pulls a knife on you.
Look, the previous commenter has legitimate question how can we do it for real. Not just speed run to the gates of afterlife after touching the wrong person.
Yeah in any case it will end badly for you if not the first time then eventually. Who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
It just takes one unlucky time where the other person doesn’t subscribe to the idea of proportional response or has military training with muscle memory that takes over.
It’s weird how y’all are so desperate to catastrophize responses, and then want to call other people “internet badasses”. Look in the mirror next time you tell someone they’re going to get shot, bud. You’re the problem.
It doesn’t seem like catastrophizing when discussing how people might react to a stranger attacking them. Hitting someone in the face hard enough to knock off their glasses isn’t exactly some silly little thing that people would be ridiculous to respond to. It is an attack and people would likely perceive it as such. Plenty of people would just be stunned and do nothing, but plenty of people carry and go to the range every weekend just waiting for someone to try something.
When stranger assaults you, every person with some practical military training is going to want to neutralise target as fast as possible because this is the survival strategy that is hammered into your muscle memory.
There is no thinking or musing whether they just want to slap you or I don’t know what. You don’t know your attacker and their intentions.
This is the real world. I don’t know why you would think this is some kind of stupid game to go around and slap people. It will cause problems.
Not sure why you're being downvoted, except that you might be overgeneralizing on former military.
Some people can kick your ass badly without a knife or gun, like military/ex-military.
Shooting someone for breaking your glasses would be an act of murder. Even shooting someone for slapping you in the face would be an act of murder. Clearly you don't have experience with firearms or the legislation around them, or you would be aware of this.
I am sure there will be plenty of time for legal musings after the funeral. You could watch trial from above if afterlife exists and has good internet connection
While I'd like to agree with you, and do in some cases, there are many cases where this just isn't a feasible approach. For example, a peer coworker has a pair of these. I just don't interact with her while she is wearing them. If my boss were to get a pair there is no way I can justify slapping them off his face.
It’s also at least simple assault, and quite possibly aggravated assault on someone that has a sophisticated camera pointed at your face that’s sending biometrics, images, and probably video back to one of the worst privacy offenders on the planet.
Feels great to say it. Would feel great to do it. Morally defensible to anyone that knows anything about privacy if the person isn’t low-vision or something. In reality, a terrifically stupid idea.
Streaming someone live to Meta, potentially the most evil company in the world (not "per employee" but by "damage done per day") without their permission, especially in a place where this is not at a expected - like an office rather than a football stadium - is great justification. It ticks all the boxes.
They're incredibly popular in the blind community, and for good reason.
I think even the political activists will be extremely divided on this one. You have privacy on one hand, accessibility and a genuinely life-changing technology on the other.
Yeah, this could be the "lost dog" approach that Ring was trying. I feel for the blind. But in weighing their concern against everyone else's... they should get a different supplier.
Blind user here. Reality is, we are so disadvantaged in this world that we will gladly accept any tool that is useful. Almost nobody would ever read the TOS. Its a bit like with cars... Sure, there are some urban exceptions, but truth is, if you ask someone to give up their car, they will laugh you out the door.
I'm sorry that you are in this predicament. Many rely on these tools. When something finally works, few are going to walk away because of a long terms of service most of us will never read. That doesn't mean you don't care about privacy though, it just means you are forced into a tradeoff.
With AI glasses like the ones Meta is pushing, the device is not just helping you. It is recording. Photos and videos can be sent back to company servers. Reports show that human reviewers can see very private footage users never meant to share. That includes sensitive personal moments. The device is basically an always-on camera tied to a giant data company.
If you depend on that device to understand the world, that makes you more vulnerable, not less. If ads, errors, or AI hallucinations start shaping what you hear about your surroundings, that affects your only channel of perception. If your daily life is constantly captured and stored, that affects your autonomy.
So yes, many of us will still use the tech. But that is exactly why pushing for strong, clear privacy terms now matters. Accessibility should not mean giving up control over your own life.
Sure, every interaction in society is a tradeoff... However, I must destroy your dreams. Being disabled almost always means surrendering control over your own life to others. Or, better phrased, constantly fighting to keep control from being taken away from you by external, mostly well meaning, forces. But I get it, really. No need to ELI5. I hope the "you" in your explanation was rethorical... because if it wasn't, I definitely feel talked down to. I read the article we are commenting. I am well aware about the problem of hallucination, especially when image LLMs get used to describe the world. I have even done my own empirical tests to get a feel of the extent of the problem. All my comment was trying to say is, that when it comes to assistive technologies which actually provide value, idiology and privacy concerns pretty much go out the window very very fast, much faster then the average HN reader might assume. That is why Meta glasses are very popular amongst the visually impaired. Or do you seriously suggest they (we) are all so naiv as to not know what kind of deal we just struck with the devil?
Full disclosure: I don't own Meta glasses (yet), but I know some users and observe rollout amongst assistive technology resellers.
I don't have much of an objection to Blind people wearing these, but there are all kinds of things that are OK to do with a disability that aren't OK to do if you don't need special accomodation.
They shouldn't be divided, they should (wo)man up and say the thing they well know out loud: the harms to society are not worth it, the societal consequences of Meta being in control of this are severe and will, as always, hurt the weak and poor the most. Unfortunately the blind community will have to wait a few more years to get a local version, which is guaranteed to appear with how things are going.
Have you tried bringing it up with HR? If you explain why you try to avoid her while she's wearing them, they might ask her to stop wearing them to work.
Meta's own guidelines[1] say that you should "Power off in private spaces."
You can't always tell if you're being recorded since they can be tampered with to disable the LED. And from what I gather, the LED only serves to indicate of video recording, and not necessarily audio.
You could always say you're not comfortable being processed and uploaded to Meta. If they wear the glasses at their desks replacing their screen , that's fair game.
Exactly, not only you agree to any sort of harm (potentially fatal) in return by any sort of weapons that person has you can’t see, they can just do nothing and record you and you have problems with police and serve short sentence even.
This is all children talk here. Seriously people stop being so edgy on the internet and what you wouldn’t do. Use your god damn brain
while noble, basically any western system will punish such behaviour as assault ... perhaps this point could be expressed as a prefererence for the law to change such that deprivation of privacy becomes a valid self defense argument ... in the meantime there do exist passive defenses such as face masks designed to interfere with facial recognition
This seems like the most obvious, legal, and direct way to stigmatize use of these glasses. Put a phone up to their face and say “I might be recording you.”
I've always wanted to sew very bright IR LEDs into a hat that would blind a camera. Your face would naturally be shadowed by the bill of the hat as that's its intended purpose. The IR would hopefully make the camera want to adjust shutter speed and gain/ISO while assuming a fixed aperture lens.
There was a fictional version of this in the Artemis Fowl books. My old camcorder picked up a lot of IR outside of visible range, but I think newer sensors are much less susceptible to this.
Depends what your threat model is, but this will literally turn you into a glowing signal that says "hey, look at me!" Your face might be protected but anyone manually reviewing security footage will be paying way more attention.
> Are there any less obviously aggressive tactics we can use?
If you are in the US, and hopefully in a state that is open to blocking this sort of thing, be very vocal and persistent with your state reps about the issue. Get others to join. I am curious if this will be legal within the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act or a couple other states with similar laws
Email corporate security and the chief privacy officer with logs of who is wearing spy glasses. Remind them Facebook controls where that data is stored and who has access to it. Ask how to respond to auditors inquiring about it leave off, "in the future audits".
- Or -
Walk around with a vlogger camera that has a large microphone. If anyone takes issue, say "I'm the 5th person here walking around recording everyone today. The others are using a spy camera in their glasses."
- Or -
Borrow a pair of them when in public at a restaurant and loudly say, "Oh my god! These AI smart glasses really do remove everyone's clothing, even on the children!" be ready to run.
_________________
Only do these things if you typically rock the boat regardless. i.e. often try and fail to get fired or arrested.
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!
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Yep. Once a couple of nerds got rich, it's what that segment pointed their money finders at. Advertising / marketing went with them.
It was a much nicer place for everyone when it was just the nerds who "had love for the game" :(
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)
Of course they have a choice, just like you do. You're making excuses for them that they don't need. They're actively choosing the "work at Meta and maintain lifestyle" rather than "don't work at Meta and maybe slightly change lifestyle". Every day, they make that choice.
Take all the people who get and got laid off. Their life goes on.
> responsiblities that come with obvious, healthy, lifestyle choices (i.e. marriage and kids)
99.9999% of people in the world who are married with kids, don't work at Meta.
Unfortunately, because 99.999% of people in the world are “customers” of Meta, making profit for Meta, the 0.001% of people who do work at Meta are paid like relative kings.
I think you're arguing with a point I didn't make. I'm not excusing anyone. I'm describing a mechanism in response to "I cannot comprehend why." Here, why people stay in situations they might privately find distasteful. That's a different project than assigning moral grades.
"They have a choice" is of course literally true. It's also not very interesting? Everyone always has a choice in the tautological sense. The question the parent raised was how do people live with it, and the answer is: the same way people live with all kinds of things. Incrementally, surrounded by context that makes it feel normal, with stakes that feel high relative to their baseline, not yours.
Your 99.9999% stat kind of makes my point for me. Those people also didn't get a $400k offer from Meta. The trap isn't marriage+kids, it's young + don't know better + land there + marriage + kids+a lifestyle calibrated to a specific income, plus the identity that comes with it. The golden handcuffs thing is a cliché because it's real.
None of this is a defense of working on things you find unconscionable. It's just that "they could simply choose not to" has never once in history been a sufficient explanation of human behavior.
> I have something really priceless and rare, complete luxury of choice, and 99% of people don't
People working at Meta are almost without exception, people who have more luxury of choice than nearly anyone on the planet. It's very important to keep repeating this, and not say the direct opposite as you did. You can make your point without doing so.
You keep restating that Meta employees are enormously privileged as though that contradicts me. It doesn't - it's the premise. The entire phenomenon I'm describing, in response to "I cannot comprehend why", is that privilege and felt optionality are different things, and the gap between them is where people get stuck.
Partly, but that flattens it. It's not just awareness, the actual cost of exit is different. Me walking away from a job means I’m a little more lonely, that’s it. I never sold any stock until I left, I’m down $5K total in 3 years. A Meta engineer with a family walking away means pulling kids out of school, selling a house, a spouse's life getting upended. Those aren't the same choice with different levels of self-knowledge. They're materially different choices.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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
It's painfully obvious to me society cannot do two things at once. You focus on one shared goal as a culture or everything falls apart very rapidly - as we are seeing today. It's why a common external "enemy" (e.g competitor, nation state, culture, whatever) has historically been so important.
The shared goal can be complex in nature, which requires many disciplines to come together to achieve it via a series of many parallel activities that might look like they are all doing something random, but it's all in the service of that singular shared goal.
This holds true from my experience at the national level all the way down to small organizations.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
You can keep your phone here but the cameras are taped off. Of course that can easily be undone but it avoids the "oh sorry I forgot it wasn't allowed" excuse.
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.
Don't be dense. They control what they upload to social media and they mostly do it within closed circles (close friends, etc). Being recorded without consent is another story.
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.
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.
The Wayfarer style was always bulky, they have been a fashion staple for decades at this point. The Meta gen2 ones aren't really that noticeably larger than "normal" Wayfarers - probably why they latched on this style as it gives the most room to stuff electronics while remaining similar sized to the original Wayfarer design.
I still see folks wearing Wayfarers almost every single day, and have owned various (non-Meta) pairs of them for most of my adult life. It's literally one of the most popular sunglasses designs of all time.
Meta have a minority stake in Ray Ban and Oakley's parent company, EssilorLuxottica. The investment was largely to support development of future AI glasses. It does make me a little sad to see Wayfarers end up this way too.
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.
If you know what to look for, yes. But the average person doesn't browse Hacker News and watch tech YT videos in their free time and has likely not even heard of them.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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
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.
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.
Yeah sometimes the younger gym bros are in the dressing room at my gym taking pictures of themselves in the mirror. If they accidentally include my ~60 year old ass cheeks in the background, IDGAF. Probably ruins the photo for them.
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.
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.
i actually agree with this take; i dont see the problem that smart glasses solve. what, my phone screen isnt literally in front of my eyeballs 24/7? i have a need to be absolutely plugged into scrolling social media and consuming content so much that i just have to have the screen in my glasses? this feels much more like what tech companies want people to want rather than what people want.
I wouldn't be surprised if secured smart glasses were a useful tool in a corporate environment. By secured I mean the software stack fully controlled by corporate IT and only for use on premise. Most places will already have pervasive surveillance cameras and in a work context they might actually prove useful if used in conjunction with other computing devices.
Or maybe not. Tablets are impressively portable and the screen is probably good enough.
first let me say i agree its a solution looking for a problem
you can still take the glasses off. i dont own glasses but do use vr and the shift between putting on/taking off a headset feels more intentional than the glance at a phone. feels less addictive to me. maybe lightweight glasses and dark patterns will "fix" that eventually
to do what? We've already had this experiment in the form of phone calling and texting. And that's not technological because both are mature. People vastly prefer the latter. It's discrete, faster and asynchronous. In the same vein, does anyone actually use their Alexa?
I was just in a datacenter deploying a bunch of infrastructure while coordinating with remote network operations and sysadmin teams. It was damn annoying having to constantly check my phone for new slack messages, or deal with Siri reading back messages in it's incompetent manner. I missed quite a few time sensitive messages like "move that fiber from port A to port B" due to noise or getting busy with another task and kept folks waiting for longer than needed.
In limited circumstances having a wearable "HUD" interface would be quite nice. Especially if it had great screen quality and I could do things like see a port mapping/network diagram/blueprints/whatever while doing the actual work. Would save considerable time vs. having to look down at a laptop or phone screen and lose my place in the physical wire loom or whatnot. Having an integrated crash cart (e.g. via wireless dongles) would be even more exciting.
That's just one recent task that comes to mind.
There are plenty of real world hands-on jobs where this would be quite helpful. So long as it's not connected to meta or the cloud or anything other than a local device or work network.
For a more general use-case I have what amounts to minor facial blindness/forgetfulness of names. I need to study your face for a long time over many interactions to actually remember you. Something as simple as wearing glasses vs. not can mean I will not recognize someone I've spent months interacting with multiple times a week.
I've long wished I had some way to implant something in my brain that would give the equivalent of video game name avatars superimposed over someone's head. For totally non-nefarious reasons, just names of folks I previously have met pulled from my contacts list. Obviously this is unlikely to ever be a socially acceptable thing due to recording and other potential abuses - but I have thought this for at least 25 years now - before the privacy concerns became obvious. Wishful thinking, but I can imagine myriad of uses for such technology if it didn't enable such a wide-spread number of potential abuses.
While that may have been the original motivator, they have largely settled into a niche as a sort of fitness sensor. People do not typically use apps on them.
VR most definitely solves a real problem, but the issue with VR is the absolute setup complexity to get it performing 'correctly'. I spent 3 years tweaking mine and writing OpenXR layers to get it functioning how I wanted it to in iRacing. It's nearly a full-time job. VR right now is like if you went to buy eggs but instead of eggs they're grenades and opening the box pulled all the pins. Out of the box experience is beyond dog shit and impossible for casual users, leaving a very small avenue for VR enjoyment for regulars (PSVR and the like). I cannot think of a technology more diametric to 'plug n play' than VR, which is very unfortunate.
> I cannot think of a technology more diametric to 'plug n play' than VR, which is very unfortunate.
Ironically that's exactly what the Quest solved with SLAM, it really is plug and play, otherwise I would not have bought one... and it sucks that Meta now owns it, but it really is still the best "just works" VR.
I also don't think VR has much potential to solve real world problems for enough people, but it doesn't have to because it's pretty good entertainment as a gaming device (albeit still fairly niche).
> Great glasses would solve a problem, I could take my stupid phone out of my hand.
And do what? For calls you've long been able to use a wireless headset. Otherwise most tasks involve frequent user input. Do you really want to be constantly waving your hands around in the air in front of your face? That sounds tiring at best.
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.
I think you have missed the wristband input device then. It gives the user fairly subtle finger gestures to interact with the device. I wonder how far that input tech can be pushed, not necessarily (only) in comination with glasses.
The point isn't to allow people to do more with the glasses, the point is to interpose between the user and the physical world so you can control what they see and hear and so you can see what they see. You could see the same thing with Apple's VR headset -- if you can hide certain things from your own view in the headset, then Apple can hide things they don't want you to see too.
There isn't really a counter to that because most people will buy these things to watch movies on the airplane or the train, and they won't see the yoke until it's too late.
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).
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.
The parent was talking about people choosing to wear these. Today there might be reluctance to wear them because they're creepy or uncool. But that mirrors the reluctance for cool kids to wear bluetooth earpieces back when they were those chunky Borg-looking things. Then they got shrunk down. They got "high quality, convenient, [and] light".
When these types of glasses are virtually indistinguishable from regular sunglasses, and a critical mass of cool people wear them all the time, the reluctance from the rest of us will melt away.
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.
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
> 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.
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
I agree with your first point - but Meta and other organizations don't really have to act in a socially acceptable manner at their scale. Creating laws at least opens the door to legal action to keep them in line.
My last two bullets intentionally walked the line on stalking and spoke to some of the arguments law enforcement have attempted to use to nefariously surveil the public without a warrant [0].
I also have a difficult time jamming 'right to forget' through the first amendment protections in the United States but it does provide some protection/agency to individuals to protect their identity.
It's not a legal problem but a cultural one. Piracy, for example, is already illegal, but everyone does it.
Smartphones and social media apps made it frictionless to post public videos on the Internet. The only legislation that could be effective would be to forbid social media from hosting videos of public places somehow, and I'm not sure how effective or practical would that even be.
We live in a world where people have a literal phone in their hands and they would rather make a video call than a simple phone call. Something needs to happen to fundamentally change people's habits or it will only get worse in the future.
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.
Great, let's regulate it! And why are glasses more offensive than cell phone cameras, or go pros, or drones? I genuinely do not understand why people don't worry about the other form factors, but draw the line at the glasses, so help me here. To be clear - I understand why people find being recorded creepy. I don't understand why the glasses form factor is creepy but random cell phone recordings that are shared on the internet all the time without the consent of the recorded people aren't.
tl;dr It's the difference between possessing a camera and actively pointing it at someone.
Think about the practical aspect of it. I have to point my phone at you to record you. It's really quite conspicuous. It's also mildly inconvenient for me so I won't be doing it the vast majority of the time.
Whereas the glasses point wherever you're looking, are expected to be recording constantly, and are expected to do things with the data involving third parties. It's the same as a VR headset except in that case the expectation is that the footage is neither sent anywhere nor even retained, merely presented live to the user as if he were looking at you (and his face is already point in your direction).
"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.
I'm going to guess that someone who can afford smart glasses can afford to have another pair of unsmart glasses. What is it about the _glasses_ that people find creepier than a smartphone that can literally do even more invasive things than the current glasses technology?
Anecdotal screeching aside, they’re objectively selling far better than any headgear ever made. The sales figures show they’re pretty popular as far as wearables go. That leads me to believe we’re not in the same world as Google glass especially when back then folks were far more trusting of tech (let alone the fact that it’s meta).
The times I do I see folks wearing them the normie reaction is typically “oh cool” and not some libertarian allergic reaction to technology.
I don’t know what the downvote is about. I’ve not said anything for or against this tech or the company that makes it. I just don’t think it’s valuable to inform your world view on tech takes that are old enough to be taking the practice SAT.
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.
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.
They almost certainly already do. If you just look into Axon you'll see they have tons of cloud-based and AI products. Axon is the major player in police body cameras in the US.
No experience w/ Axon, but I work adjacent their major competitor. I don't know about the whole "training AI" angle, but Motorola Watchguard body and in-car cameras absolutely upload to a hosted service.
Uploading to a hosted service is not even remotely the same thing. In one of the jurisdictions I'm familiar with the Axon cams don't record until manually activated and the footage is treated as secured evidence. Other than being subject to FOIA or analyzed for a case it isn't generally accessible.
That said I'm not sure how much of that is merely department policy versus local law.
In Spain the typical doorbell camera is illegal. In an apartment building it is illegal to have a camera on the door that points into "common" areas even though these are still private areas vis-a-vis the general public.
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.
Eh, doorbell cams aren’t that controversial (ad aside). A lot of people have them already, both from ring (with the concomitant privacy issues) or from other providers (with different but similar issues).
They’re controversial on hacker news but I don’t think people in the “real world” care all that much.
How that connects to the meta glasses is certainly up for debate —- the doorbells provide a lot of value to the user (know who is at the door remotely!), the glasses are more of a mixed bag.
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.
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.
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.
> body cameras had no statistically significant impact on officer use of force, civilian complaints, or arrests for disorderly conduct by officers. In other words, body cameras did not reduce police misconduct
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92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians, while just 8.3 percent have used it to prosecute police officers[1]
Cops control when the cameras are filming, if footage is retained and what/when/if footage is released. Body cams are just yet another surveillance tool against the population.
> 92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians
I'd suggest browsing body cam footage on youtube for a bit. If you see the sort of stuff being prosecuted it might not bother you.
If it hasn't reduced police use of force or misconduct (I find this claim questionable) I think that's unfortunate but regardless it's important to implement systems that document that to the greatest extent possible. If we do that today then maybe it can be reduced tomorrow.
That means far less than you might think. As long as officer testimony is given a privileged status the courtroom there’s minimal risk to civilians that body cameras are making things worse for them.
100% percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used officer testimony as evidence to prosecute civilians. Meanwhile I suspect the use of officer testimony is even more lopsided in favor of cops.
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.
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.
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.
As a dev, I think the core issue isn’t whether one indicator LED can be bypassed — motivated people can bypass almost any client-side control. The trust boundary is policy + defaults. If enabling “AI features” implicitly authorizes broad retention/review, users won’t understand the tradeoff until after the fact.
A better pattern would be tiered modes with explicit UX: local-only capture, cloud processing without retention, and opt-in retention/training with visible status. If the product can’t technically support that separation today, that limitation should be stated plainly in setup, not buried in policy docs.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
There is an app called Be My Eyes where blind people can use the app to be connected to someone who can see and ask questions. An example might be, “is this a red or brown sweater.”
It actually looks like it added AI functionality, so not every question goes out to a live helper, but they still do have that option.
Something like the Meta glasses could mean a lot less reliance on app that reach out to actual people, or looking for the phone all the time, for day-to-day help with things like this.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, that's fair enough. My neighborhood doesn't have that so it's fairly easy to avoid the use of Facebook.
I still spend too much arguing on HN but not as much as I was on Facebook and the audience here is generally more educated and so the arguments aren't as mind-numbing.
> 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.
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.
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.
I would have been the first to talk about meta being horrible for privacy and this goes even further than what I expected, which was:
- they have the opportunity to save the video feed at any time
- they are probably storing some kind of metadata of the feed, maybe some kind of analysis output
- someone could hypothetically watch it
I thought it was dangerous because I thought they could do what they're doing, but I didn't think that right now they actually were and so overtly
I am also surprised, but not because I believe Meta to care about the ethics of the whole thing. After all their privacy scandals, I’d assume they’d have policies in place to prevent something that can so easily be leaked. But here we are
The thing is it's not just surprising from a privacy standpoint but also from an engineering standpoint -- this sounds very data-, power-, and storage-intensive, in a device that's very constrained on all sides, so it wouldn't have even occurred to me this was a possibility. When are they even uploading all the videos without blowing through their power budget and internet data limits? Are they heavily compressing it to like one frame per second or something?
The data required is small. Each embedding might be 1/2 kB per face.
> power budget
To process a video for biometric feature extraction, it might take 0.5% to 2% of the total power used to record a video. Video uses a lot of power (compression, screen, etc)
Assuming you've got a modern device (e.g. with Apple Neutral Engine). Disclosure: Googled info (Gemini).
> The data required is small. Each embedding might be 1/2 kB per face.
"Embedding"? This is what the article says:
"In some videos you can see someone going to the toilet, or getting undressed. I don’t think they know, because if they knew they wouldn’t be recording."
I find it extremely naive too. I expect much worse than this from Meta and I am often amazed at just what it is going to take for people to realize what Meta is and does. I mean it is not like we have 11 million examples of what and who they are. In this story I would have expected additionally that Meta would notice little bit of cellulite in the woman that was changing and then having the employees call her husband to tell them to surprise her with amazing cream he should buy her for their upcoming anniversary (and if this was actually part of the story I would be able to continue on top of this and would not be surprised if true).
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.
> I’m not sure what sort of signals you’ve gotten from Meta that would suggest they are above this type of behavior?
It wasn't Meta's morals that gave me any signals to that effect. It was the potential legal minefield on top of the engineering challenges [1] that made it so I didn't even consider this as a possibility. In fact I'm still confused. I don't understand how they would be pulling this off despite those challenges, and I would love to.
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.
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.
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
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.)
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
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.
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"
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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!
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.
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.)
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.
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"
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
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
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?
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.
That quote illustrates the tension between tech companies and user trust. The evolution of privacy concerns is significant, especially given the data these devices can now collect.
Remember when facebook was busted playing silent audio so the app could stay active in the background? I honestly don't think there's a company I trust less than facebook/meta. And it's because the rot is at the top, and has always been there.
>The other issue, that Facebook was running a silent audio stream in the background, is also called out. Grant says this was unintentional, and that it was not being used to keep the app alive — yet it did as a byproduct of the bug.
How much issue tracking and scrum management and engineering work and code review and testing and deployment and maintenance went into accidentally streaming silent audio that you only stop doing after you got caught and have to claim all that successfully tested and deployed work was unintentional, without ever explaining the actual innocuous purpose of streaming silent audio and paying for all that extra bandwidth?
I was just reading a comment on HN yesterday about how MacOS had so many bugs. I guess they don't have issue tracking, scrum management, engineering work, code review, testing, deployment, and maintenance either.
I hate FB, but not everything is always a sinister plan, although this could have been. I will repeat: "with Facebook, who knows."
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.
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.
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.
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.
Part of it is civics. You have the right to record in public. Being in a public space means you are consenting to being recorded; it's in public. It's not always moral, classy, correct, or good, but the alternative is the erosion of the principles of free press, freedom of expression, etc.
The form factor of the camera doesn't matter. We do have different constraints, but those are pretty solidly filled out in case law. I don't believe making recording glasses illegal to wear in public would withstand constitutional scrutiny. Mandating a visible notification with a conventional color, signaling things like "on" "passive" and "recording" would be constitutional and wouldn't infringe. That said, surreptitious use would likely be legal, e.g. aftermarket modification to allow recording with no lights; first amendment issues have a high bar and all sorts of secret camera precedents being legal. This is how corrupt politicians and cops and officials get caught, all the time, and it's highly unlikely to be smart glasses that gets the people and courts to flip on 1A.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
> 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.
"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.)
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"?
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.
Did you make a wrong turn? /r/asshat is over there ->
You posted a message in "Who wants to be hired" at almost the same time as you posted this. Do you think a potential recruiter would read your comment history?
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.
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?
“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.
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 ...
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”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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…
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 thought I stated my position pretty clearly. This is like saying, “We should ban guns!” And then use a successful self-defense case as a supporting argument. Whether you agree or disagree with the thesis, I think we can all agree that’s a stupid way to make the point. But perhaps you just aren’t willing to have a genuine discussion.
You are the one nitpicking about the argument ("I agree with your point, but I will just complain about your example"), so don't be surprised if you get answers :-).
> This is like saying, “We should ban guns!” And then use a successful self-defense case as a supporting argument.
Not quite, no. It is saying "If even those people who benefit from their national security can be tracked by an actor that does not own the cameras, it means that anyone can be tracked by those cameras. Do we want foreign actors to be able to track anyone in the country, even the leadership?".
It actually makes a stronger point than "normal people who gladly share all their data can be tracked", and even stronger than "a journalist taking care not to be tracked can still be tracked". Here we have the leadership of a country that knows that they are targets, who therefore benefit from national security. And they can still be tracked.
Anyone who has a mobile phone has been tracked by their phone provider forever, with the accuracy of a couple blocks. Smartphones only bring more trackers to the equation in the form of apps.
What's the material concern to tracking that glasses add?
Surely the difference between location tracking (that still requires a warrant for the government to get access to, thus Stingrays) and the intimate visual processing and tagging that is derived from the likes of smart glasses is self explanatory, right?
To that point, the difference between geolocation and video tracking and analysis (like Flock) seems pretty obvious to me.
You can recognize a threat to national security without supporting the ideology behind it. It sounds like you are trying to to spread FUD around stronger privacy regulations. It would be a lot less funny when the shoe is on the other foot and it's not Iranian networks that's being compromised. Are you perhaps a vendor of mass surveillance systems like your username's namesake?
Well, I personally don’t think the answer to, “Our enemies might use the same tactics,” is to avoid entering into what I believe is a justified conflict. Besides, if you think China could push over the US without lighting the entire world on fire then I don’t know what to tell you. Nobody wants that, and they’re not stupid or religiously radical enough to pull something like that. Obviously Iran is, since they woke up yesterday at war with 2 counties and ended up at war with 7 by the end of the day. Imagine if they had nukes.
Being "against" domestic surveillance doesn't mean shit. It's a done deal, America is surveilled by it's own government and China is actively exploiting it as an attack vector.
Get it out of your system now, these double-standards won't be funny when Taiwan is blockaded.
Edit: no, seriously, you having some personal axe to grind is no excuse for directing it at me or my comments. This is a sign of a person having a skewed perspective.
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.
> 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.
Can we discuss the issue without being accusatory and interrogatory. The point of the guidelines (about titles and everything else) is so we can discuss things curiously, without getting riled up.
OK I've looked in the logs and here's what happened.
The originally submitted title was: The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything.
That title was created by the submitter; it's not the original title and it's not a verbatim line of text from anywhere in the article.
It's also, arguably, clickbait, which I gather is why another moderator changed it to: A hidden workforce behind Meta’s new smart glasses.
Their intention was to make the title less baity and be closer to a verbatim line from the article (a line in the subheading is "Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce").
That's what triggered all the complaints.
I then changed it to a title that is a verbatim string from the HTML title, with the baity part at the end removed. That is bog standard title editing of the kind I've done every day for the several years I've been doing this job.
> First-ever in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe, study finds
"Is safe" is not an absolutist claim, but even since your comment was submitted, another moderator has – correctly – changed "first-ever" to "first", because "first-ever" is absolutist and baity.
> 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.
What I've described above is what HN moderators do several times each day. I think the reaction to this one is because it's a topic that inherently gets people riled up (understandably), and people's riled-up-ness will spill over to any perception that we're "suppressing" the story. But we're not suppressing the story; it is still at top spot, and it will stay on the front page for several hours and everyone will have every chance to read it and discuss it.
The title we've arrived at now is the one that's most consistent with the guidelines.
> and people's riled-up-ness will spill over to any perception that we're "suppressing" the story
It’s just a hot topic. The A hidden workforce one was way off, which is why people might have got that impression. I don’t think this was intentional, but I can understand where the backlash is coming from :)
Isn’t “nothing is truly safe” a common saying on HN? Safe is an absolute term and since nothing can be safe people usually avoid using safe as a standalone attribution to something. It is usually qualified in some way.
I was just curious. This “nothing is safe” is just burnt into my brain and simply wanted to know the reason because it sounded so far fetched that safe is not absolute. But I totally agree.
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”’.
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.
Funny enough it's the OS and manufacturer I don't trust with my phone, with my PC I trust them a lot more as they're much more open and I can choose the OS.
For reference, Samsung screenshots everything shown on their televisions at regular intervals and sends these to their South Korean data centres for advertisers to use. It's called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), which any sane country should be outright banning under international espionage laws.
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.
For the main camera there are cases with sliding covers for many phone models. Marketed for protecting the lens from scratches, but quite effective for privacy as well
For the front camera that's a lot more difficult. You could probably modify one of those flexible screen protectors to black out the camera, but it'd be very inconvenient to take off.
Maybe there is some niche android phone that offers physical shutters, similar to the ones on Lenovo laptop webcams
Can I get a pair of camera glasses that uses AI to identify other camera glasses, and controls a moveable laser to blast the cameras on the other glasses?
You'll need much better high-speed cameras than on existing glasses, and a really good beam steering mechanism coupled with much better laser than Blu-ray diodes. It'll be heavier than most VR goggles and very finicky. I don't even know which ones of fixed camera with a dual polygonal or standard 2-axis galvos or prism based PTZ with the camera doing classical lock-on and trained laser shooting from the opposite side of the camera. It's a >$50k project at benchtop static PoC level.
Put aside everything unethical and unworkable about it. Probably cheaper to lobby for a think-about-kids camera ban for products weighing less than 250g or contains transparent window apparatus that may or may not be curved in diameters larger than 10mm for fire risks or something.
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”".
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.
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.
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?
or
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
That's the only way this can be fixed. Socially shaming everyone isn't going to beat facebook. Laws banning them from doing evil things with the data will.
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.
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.
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’:
>>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.
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.
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.
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
Have you seen them in the wild? They're notably chunky and have an obvious hole where the lens is. You might not notice it in passing but if someone's talking to you it's hard not to notice. I wonder how many of their owners realise how much they're affecting every interaction they have with another human.
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.
> 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.
Legal frameworks often struggle to keep pace with technology, leading to complex issues. In regions that prioritize privacy, finding the right balance between innovation and individual rights can be particularly difficult.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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."
Right, that's the section I was confused by because it was in the context of an experiment trying to use the AI stuff without an Internet connection, which obviously won't work. The article is using the "shared onwards" terminology to refer to at least inference. But the inference part is uninteresting to me, and the data labeling is. The article doesn't really separate those out.
>> 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.
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.
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.
Also some people probably tape over the light for whatever reason.
my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case. you have to intentionally modify the glasses to be able to surreptitiously record.
> my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case.
I remember when the glasses came out and this was tested: if you tape it over before starting the recording it refuses, but if you tape it after starting it will happily continue to record. I don't know if they changed it, but that is how it use to be.
Still works like that.
The glasses have in the same hole a led light and a small light sensor (similar to the ones used in monitors to set up auto-brightness).
On start recording the glasses check if the light sensor is above a certain threshold, if it is then it starts recording and turns on the led light.
So, if you start recording and then cover the hole, it keeps recording because the check only happens on start. Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor, which is a terrible design choice.
And to disable the light is as easy as using a small drill bit and breaking either the light sensor module or the led light. They can detect if it's been tampered with and they put a giant notice saying the privacy light is not working but they still let you record anyways lol.
> Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor,
The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
Or, just buy any of the many pages of hidden cam devices that exist on Amazon, which also aren't limited to only 3 minute videos.
> The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
True but then that would mean a blinking led light instead of a constant turned on led light, which is a different product requirement from what it currently does.
Parent's point was that you can likely do it at a high enough frequency that blinking would be imperceivable by the human eye.
I don't think the cheap light sensor would have a fast enough polling rate for that. And if you increase the polling rate I will just put a phosphorescent sticker that absorbs and reflects the light coming out of the led with a good enough afterglow that the photoresistor will still pick up as some value and still allow for recording.
Also what is the implication here? If you cover the hole accidentally for one microsecond do you invalidate the whole recording? Does it need to be covered for more than one second, two seconds, ten?
All of that for what? So that in 2 years we can have chinese off-brand clones for 50 dollars that offer no security mechanisms anyways?
We all need to understand this is the new normal, being able to be recorded anywhere anytime. Just like you can get punched in the street anywhere anytime. We only act on things that can be proven to have caused you prejudice in court.
We successfully shamed people out of wearing Google glasses. We also mostly have social norms about when recording with your smart phone is ok. We don't need to accept defeat about these glasses just yet
I feel like it was pretty common to have the red light blinking on and off every second when recording. In that time where it is off during that cycle it would make sense to preform the sensor checks.
Sounds like it would be pretty easy to fake out with a custom circuit too, for those that are willing to go beyond ‘whoops how did that happen’ levels.
This is somewhat handled by the max recording time of 3 minutes.
I’ve never seen a light in my life that can get through electricians tape. You would need a high powered laser to burn through it.
Taping can not be done? But if there are guides on the www for this, is this a true statement? To me it is a difficult statement because ... taping can be done in many ways. I don't see how light can magically pass through it?
The device detects that the light has been covered, and prevents recording.
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"?
Follow up question - can we jailbreak this device and install an open source alternative that makes meta irrelevant?
maybe once before they patch it
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.
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.
Camera is recording/taking a picture
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.
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.
Our country is too divided to focus on things like this.
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
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.
I find the root issue to be that what the glasses see is described as "content" in the first place.
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?
The Zuck being the Zuck, I wouldn't put it past him collecting data even if the cosmetic light is not on.
Think about the amount of data LHC generates, but it probably pales to Zuck's dic pick collection.
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."
https://bytetrending.com/2025/10/28/ray-ban-hack-disabling-t...
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!
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.
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?
I'd say the incentives are different. Laptop manufacturers see no upside from having the light stay off, whereas Meta might be the opposite.
The more trustworthy ones have a physical door you can close
>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...
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.
It's not "smearing" to use Zuckerberg's own words in a discussion of his character, and this is far from the only example of things he's done or said in the past 20 years that would lead a reasonable person to call into question his moral fiber.
It remains, however, a popular point of reference because:
1. It's fast and easy to read and digest.
2. The blunt language leaves little room for speculation about his feelings and intent at the time.
3. A lot of people understand that as Zuckerberg's wealth exploded, he surrounded himself with people (coaches, stylists, PR professionals, etc.) who are paid handsomely to rehabilitate and manage his image. Therefore, his pre-wealth behavior gives insight into who he really is.
> his pre-wealth behavior gives insight into who he really is
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
Not defending Zuck but it reflects a rigid mindset to assume that people cannot change.
People can change but based on Facebook's actions vis-a-vis privacy, mental health, etc. there's little evidence that Zuckerberg has gone from treating his users like "dumb f...." to treating them like human beings.
If we're going to talk about quotes, here's one: "money amplifies who you are".
When a man changes it is on him to prove that he has changed. Has Zuck atoned himself in any way? Has Meta?
I'm a big believer in second chances and letting people rehabilitate, but there's no evidence the Meta or Zuck have changed for the better. Meanwhile, *there is plenty of evidence that suggests he has only become more uncaring and deceptive, as Meta has only become more invasive over time*, the article itself being one such example.
So I do believe Zuck has changed, but not in the direction that we should applaud and/or forgive him. I've only seen him change in the way that should make us more concerned and further justify the hatred. A man may change, but he does not always change for the better.
I think there's more than enough evidence that Zuck has not grown to see others as human beings.
It doesn’t though, no one is the same person they were 20 years ago and every young person is makes a ton of mistakes
You're right, he's much worse now.
You're suggesting a ton of money and power made Zuckerberg more empathetic?
No I didn’t suggest that, I’m stating a fact that kids say stupid stuff all the time.
No, you didn't suggest that. You suggested that the quote is not representative of who he is now.
We'd need a lot more context (and words) for us to understand that sentence as anything other than defending him. At best you're giving him the benefit of doubt.
I think his actions speak for themselves. Facebook, effectively completely controlled by Zuckerberg, has consistently taken actions that erode privacy and degrade mental health.
And no, not every young person has the attitude that Zuckerberg demonstrated in his "dumb f...s" comment. If my son or daughter was behaving like that in their late teens/early twenties I would be ashamed and feel like a failure as a parent.
There's a big difference between "someone said something stupid as a kid"... "but now has changed and is a totally different person" and "is doing the same things but now knows how not to say the quiet part out loud"
He wasn't even a kid. He was like 20 years old at university.
Exactly.
Show us how Meta is a moral player in society.
All I can see are lots of evil behaviors.
>they have to reach 20 years into the past.
Well, they don't, but this is a particularly damning statement and it's age is more of a feature than a flaw because it shows a long history of anti-social disdain for humanity.
I hear this rebuttal a lot; here's why it doesn't work for me:
I'm the exact same age as Zuckerberg. When I first read this quote, it struck me as a really gross mindset and a point of view that I could neither relate to nor have sympathy for. I would not have said (or thought) those things when I was his age. Fundamentally, this is a demonstration of poor character.
Now, people do grow and change. We've all said or done things that we regret. Life can be really hard, at times, for most of us, and more often than not young arrogant guys eventually learn some humility and grace and empathy after they confront the real world and experience the inevitable ups and downs of life.
But Zuckerberg had no such experience. His life during and after the time when he said this was one of accelerating material success and validation. The scam he was so heartlessly bragging about in that statement actually worked, and he became one of the richest men in the world. So my expectation of the likelihood that he matured away from this mindset is much lower than it would be for someone like you or me.
(And, as others have said in this thread, there's ample evidence from his subsequent decisions to support this)
Learning to choose your words more wisely as you age does not necessarily indicate your underlying value system has evolved.
Okay, how about a settlement from just last year, about how Meta does nothing but violate privacy? [0]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jmledvr3o
>it is perhaps also damning that any time someone wants to smear zuck they have to reach 20 years into the past.
It is perhaps not, and perhaps a bit disingenuous to claim so in good faith, as if it exceeds your abilities to search for the list of facebook scandals in the decades following and see that the behavior is often consistent with this quote. Even if you choose to ignore all that, it's also not very reasonable to expect troves of juicier quotes after all the C-suites, lawyers, and HR departments showed up locked everything down with corporate speak. I'm sure if facebook were to be so kind as to leak all the messages and audio of zuck's internal comms since that time people would be able to have many other juicy quotes to work with.
It is often referenced because it's the best quote that represents the trailblazing era of preying on users' undying thirst for convenience in order to package their private data as a product.
Thank you for saying this. I would not find a better way to word the response myself.
"It is perhaps not, and perhaps a bit disingenuous to claim so in good faith, as if it exceeds your abilities to search for the list of facebook scandals in the decades following and see that the behavior is often consistent with this quote.
It is often referenced because it's the best quote that represents the trailblazing era of preying on users' undying thirst for convenience in order to package their private data as a product.
These sentences are deliciously delightful to read in this era of writing whose blandness and sloppiness is only amplified by LLM-driven "assistance".
It is difficult to be pithy without being bitter, but your writing achieves it within the span of a single comment. If you have a blog, I hope you share it!
https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02718...
You would have a good point if what Meta is doing now wasn’t far worse than what Zuck himself is describing in those comments, all while Zuck has remained at the helm the entire time.
I'd say once someone reveals their true character, you should believe it.
Or just quote anything out of the much more recent book Careless People.
Character almost never changes.
>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.
Smear is a word that's not applicable here. It implies that the allegations in the argument labeled thusly are wrong and unjust.
This is not the case here.
or just at any point in the last 20 years to the present works too
Not as self-damning as you trying to defend what he said 20 years ago, with full knowledge of how he's acted in those intervening 20 years.
Congratulations, you've just smeared yourself with your own contemporary words.
you are who you are
or more recently the times he lied to Congress, all the layoffs, the "metaverse", etc
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.
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.
I've tried to learn and grow from the stupid comments of my youth. I haven't been involved in a long list of scandals directly related to the ideas those comments expressed, and if I was, it would be pretty clear that I didn't learn or grow at all.
Yes, I posted some stupid stuff as teenager and later.
I never in my life were mocking and making fun out of other people for trusting me, or equivalent.
I also never run company that knowingly ruined multitude of lives and social interactions in general.
> snarky
Snark is not a problem that people have with Mr. Zuckerberg.
> 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.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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.
You don't get how parents share pictures of their children with their friends and family on Facebook?
Non-consensual? Abuse?
The terminology you chose is tasteless, loaded, and detracts from your point.
It’s not a controversial viewpoint that a child can’t consent to their information being uploaded permanently to the internet, even by a parent. This is because, as an adult, I can’t retroactively remove my presence from the internet. Seems silly in trivial cases (school website), but is quite severe in others (bathtub photos).
It’s also not controversial to paint the harmful, profit-seeking actions of companies upon minors as “abusive” (e.g. tobacco firms).
If anything, your knee-jerk response at their rhetoric raises eyebrows: why would you go to bat for a company who by nearly all public measures is fundamentally evil in aim and structure?
The child did not consent.
Facebook us currently being sued for targeting children with "sexual exploitation, solicitation, sextortion and human trafficking."
However, you have chosen to directly attack the above commenter based on your own views. This is tasteless, loaded, and detracts from your point.
Tasteless to you, factually correct to me. Both correct actually.
Look, you do your kids, literally nobody in the world cares how great or messed up individuals they will become, the result always match the process so its pretty obvious.
But your freedom to do whatever stops when you start infringing rights of me and my family. Right to privacy is, where I live and most sane places, enforceable by law. Also, its called not being an asshole or similar rougher terms.
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.
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?
Why would they disallow cameras on glasses but not cameras on phones, where it's just as easy to take pictures discreetly.
Not to mention, hidden miniature cameras have existed for decades.
People using hidden miniature cameras should be shamed and punished when that is discovered just like the people using these glasses.
All right here's my position:
- filming people without their consent is wrong
- the vast majority of people are not creeps and are not discreetly filming random people
- the vast majority of people are not interesting, and nobody is filming them
- today, in a public space, everybody already has lots or cameras pointing to them (e.g. anyone with a phone), without a way to know if they're being filmed. So this is not a new 'problem'.
- banning smart glasses doesn't make sense if you're not also banning all devices that can film discreetly (so, smartphones)
- 'creeps' use hidden miniature cameras, not glasses with an obvious camera right there on their very face
Incorrect points, there should be just first and the rest is just fluff.
Try taking a photo of somebody with your phone. Usage will definitely look like you are snapping a picture, nobody walks around with phones straight up. The result is, when you take pics with phone, most often its obvious. When you insult people by not asking, they see it and react negatively.
When you point to people with smart glasses, nobody knows do they and that seems to be the point. Or is it beeping and blinking some led to make everybody aware? I don't think so.
Also, we live in society where smart doorbell for which it shouldn't be technically possible to upload any pics to cloud due to not having subscription still did that, and from major manufacturer. Security is a moot point, quadruple that for facebook / meta who are consistent assholes regarding breaking security and privacy to scoop any possible data points for further advertising. The slaps on wrist they receive is just cost of doing business.
> Try taking a photo of somebody with your phone. Usage will definitely look like you are snapping a picture, nobody walks around with phones straight up.
I urge you to visit any big city and see for yourself how wrong you are. I see it at least every time every day just during my barely 20-25min subway commute to work.
And that's the most unremarkable the most uninteresting place and scenario here. Any big park, any even remotely touristy location, any public square, any concert/sports venue, and even an overwhelmingly large proportion of restaurants are like that.
Discreet is not the same thing as embedded in your face with no hands involved and indiscernible from regular glasses.
As creepy? It's way creepier than Google Glass.
> It's as creepy as Google Glass, yet we don't see the same pushback.
Didn't it come out that the pushback against google glasses was in part made by PR companies on behalf of their competition? I remember reading something along those lines.
Are you suggesting Robert Scoble's PR company was working on behalf of the competition?
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...
Perhaps his PR company business venture he tastelessly plugged in his sexual harassment non-apology-apology?
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.
He's scrubbed it from his blog and even Internet Archive, but it was well covered and widely quoted all over:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/25/16547332/robert-scoble-s...
https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/25/robert_scoble_latest/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/uploadvr-has-a-big-sexual-h...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/robert-scoble-i-...
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/10/178458/sexual-haras...
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/10/25/robert-sc...
https://slate.com/technology/2017/10/robert-scobles-blog-pos...
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/robert-scoble-define...
I think you're on to something! Maybe Meta paid Scoble to embarrass Google Glass, and now Google is paying him to embarrass Meta AI Smart Glasses too! Great work if you can get somebody to finance your serial sexual harassment scandals.
This is the only logical explanation for Robert Scoble’s popularity
Yes, the window has shifted considerably since Google glass
they are raybans. glassholes were ugly and quirky.
I’ve banned them from our office, for the same reason that I’d tell someone deliberately aiming their phone camera at the screen all day to knock it off. In an office setting, you have to treat these as industrial espionage tools, either by choice of the wearer or of a remote person controlling them.
The youths literally do not care from what I observe.
How many people under 25 do you interact with on a day to day basis?
On the other hand, EVERY young person in my circle (my kids and their friends) is insanely privacy aware. All of that means ... we're not part of the young people anymore?
There are bubbles, you are obviously in one if you do not know any privacy concerned under 25. I know 15 year olds who are extreme privacy freaks, then I care about it so it might be easier to find those people. I do find that it is the people that I think are least likely are the one who are the most extreme.
I'm pretty sure they care who takes pictures or videos of them. Try going on a train and taking pictures of a young woman or man. The only difference is these are less noticeable.
Don't forget the older people, many of whom gladly use Facebook or WhatsApp without a second thought.
Us HN weirdos are some of the last who care, and even we disagree on which tech is creepy. Hard to blame the average Joe for giving up.
I know about 20 and 2 of them are without socials and even smartphones. Its a counterculture
HN is an echo chamber who can't imagine not using some tech. Normal people can...
Google glass was more a victim of it's time, normies weren't used to everyone carrying a camera everywhere back then.
Google Glass failed because they made the user look like they were wearing a high tech computer on their face ala Dragon Ball Z. It looked odd. Meta and Snap learned from this, but it had nothing to do with smartphone cameras not being part of daily life.
The first iPhone was 2007. Google Glass came out in 2013
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.
And nothing is actually preventing Meta from doing what you refuse anyway. They might get caught, but what are you going to do?
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.
I think public shaming of that spyware should be a social norm.
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.
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.
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.
Bone conduction headphones let you listen to things while keeping your ears free, and don't upload your childrens photos to The Algorithm
So you believe that you are in control?
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.
What in Meta's history would lead you to give them the benefit of the doubt like this?
Perhaps I'm ignorant.
I know some of the criticism of Meta: many people don't like the way their products are optimized for engagement. I've heard about their weird AI bots interacting on their platform as if they were people. And I know people of all political stripes have had complaints about content moderation and their algorithm.
But all of that is within the bounds of the law and their terms of service.
None of it would remotely approach something like: bypassing the well-advertised features in the glasses that show when the camera is in use and secretly recording things to train AI. It's hard to imagine any company's lawyers approving something like that. (this sounds like what many commenters believe is happening)
FWIW, I suspect this is the relevant section of the Privacy policy:
> "When you use the Meta AI service on your AI Glasses (if available for your device), we use your information, like Media and audio recordings of your voice to provide the service."
from: https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/
if so, "to provide the service" is doing a lot of work
Meta has consistently and repeatedly shown an absolute lack of respect for user privacy for basically as long as they’ve existed as a company. I’m honestly not certain there’s anything fully out of the question as far as things they might do, regardless of what their policies might say.
Two examples that are top of mind…
They exploited browser vulnerabilities not unlike malware to track users’ behavior across the web: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas...
They bought a “privacy” VPN app and used it to harvest data, then abused Apple’s enterprise app deployments to continue to ship the app after it was banned from the app store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
I'm not an expert on all of Meta's historical criminal activity, but just going back a few months:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-...
Optimized for engagement? I guess heroin is "optimized for engagement" too.
You missed the cases where the facebook app ran a local webserver on your smartphone which the facebook ad trackers would send data to to be able to track you across all websites, breaking GDPR laws and circumventing browser third-party cookie controls?
Please disclose your affiliations
Hah, not meta or anything related
> there is a fairly logical combination of settings
I think it's anything but logical, if users (like yourself) have no idea what those settings are, as evident from your previous post.
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
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.
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.
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.
Do you take them off in the bathroom? Or if the wife is feeling spontaneous?
They're sunglasses so I mainly wear them outside.
why do you think taking them off turns them off?
The wife or the glasses?
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.
https://zuckmail.vercel.app/t/harvard-dumb-fucks
wow, what a cnut
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?
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 ...
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.
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.
> you are allowed to film/photograph when you are actively doing it
Does it really count as "actively doing it" when the glasses are constantly filming while you do other stuff. With a phone/camera people can see you are filming or taking pictures. In many countries the shutter needs to make a sound when taking pictures. For video surveilance cameras a noticeable sign or sticker is needed.
Why not? FLOCK does. And for worse reasons.
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.
>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.
Wouldn't that make "photo cloud backups" without consent illegal as well?
People do that all the time, sending private photos to Google, Apple etc.
People send their private photos to their private cloud backups with the reasonable expectation that those photos remain private and therefore not a privacy violation.
If it transpired Google or Apple had staff looking through people's cloud photo backups, yes this would be considered a violation because "cloud backup" is framed as a personal solution and not a hosting or processing solution.
Google and Apple's staff do look at people's photos, at least occasionally. The typical excuse is detecting rule violations.
It's not the same as doing this systematically (like Meta here), but these are shades of gray. A serious privacy law would prohibit both.
Yes, actually the AVG (GDPR) is very broad in what it considers personal data.
Sadly that means it is not enforced well since it is too broad to be enforced in a meaningful way. And therefore it is violated A LOT, both by companies or people since no one can be bothered!
AVG (GDPR) includes the following things as personal data: name, address, phone number, passport photo, information about someone's behavior on websites, allergies, customer or staff numbers, recognizable recordings and more.
Rule of thumb, any information that can be used to relate a specific person.
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.
Privacy of your image, not of your voice, at least as regards recordings.
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...
> 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.
I'm pretty confident that these would be illegal in public spaces in Norway.
Many countries in Europe do indeed require consent. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#France
this page is about you do with the photos, not if you are allowed to take them.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No, for most countries
I mean, otherwise countries couldn’t use security cameras
In Spain a private entity can't put a security camera that points into public spaces ...
What’s the chain of reasoning that brought you to this conclusion?
That's quite an antagonistic way to request an explanation, particularly as it seems straightforward:
If you needed consent to film people in the street, security cameras (in public places) couldn't be used. They _are_ used. So it must not be the case that you need consent to film people in the street. Assuming there is not just widespread lawbreaking, I suppose.
The difference is if you are actively filming, or the camera is set up to film by itself. Security cameras are in the latter category and therefore can only be used on your own property (you can allow someone else to do it on your own property, such as a security firm).
That depends on who has set up the security camera and what area it covers.
How so? You mean businesses vs private individuals filming the street? Or police, for example?
Depends on a country, but yes, police generally has more privileges in that regard. The laws here are also different for casual public filming vs. permanent camera or otherwise targeted filming (without consent) in public space. It also matters what you do with the material. I actually don't know if businesses are anything special compared to individuals in that regard. They can, of course, have security cameras filming their private properties (like individuals can) as long as they are open about it. And again, they can't use or spread the material however they want.
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/
Only for stationary cameras. Filming/photographing with a non-stationary camera is allowed as long as it is not in a sensitive situation (in their home, in the toilet/changing room/etc).
So I can mount my security camera on a WallE-like chassis to randomly drive around my property and I am no longer under the same strict regulation? What exactly made you come to that conclusion when IMY considers things like dashcams to be under the regulations of privacy and GDPR?
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
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
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.
When you have no fear about repercussions of being caught. Case in point, nothing will happen about this.
Surely though there is some type of survival instinct still awake and alive in the hearts and minds of men and women. We are a very aggressive species. Surely something would awaken and tell you "you should be quiet now" and "your next and only words should be lawyer". Surely...
This could very well still be the case with the people at Meta. It's just that the things that still trigger this instinct in them are far worse than what's being discussed here, so they've become desensitized, this is on the tamer end of the spectrum, and this falls below the threshold that would trigger those instincts.
Exactly, people are distracted by nothing being done about the Epstein files, a genocide being committed out in the open for 2+ years, fascist private army running around abducting DoorDash drivers and shooting people in the head. It's a great time for anyone wanting to do a society-level bad thing.
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.
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
>We weren't doing anything nearly as nefarious
But still nefarious. Thats kinda messed up, to be honest.
>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.
They better invest in frame designs too cause as soon as they're recognizable they're gonna get slapped off faces real quick
Maybe we'll see the revival of the term "glasshole"
We are seeing it. Everyone can help by using it.
The Google glasses were asking to be bullied, but the Meta ones are cooler looking
New makeup, old pig
Sometimes analog solutions are the most effective against digital problems.
You mean record onto tape?
But the hand is composed of digits. You could start by pointing at them and laughing, then flipping them off, then holding your hand up to their face so they can talk to it.
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.
Are there any less obviously aggressive tactics we can use? Wear something that is blinding to the cameras, or something else to obfuscate?
Slapping a pair of glasses that are recording you, processing your face, sending biometrics and images back to one of the worst privacy offenders on the planet off of the face of someone who is willingly doing all that without asking your permission is a perfectly appropriate reaction. Put your shoulder into it.
I'd rather we normalize that than adversarial fashion.. but that's probably what you were looking for.
Yeah sure you are going to start slapping people on the street mr badass guy. That’s all cool and fun until someone pulls a knife on you.
Look, the previous commenter has legitimate question how can we do it for real. Not just speed run to the gates of afterlife after touching the wrong person.
First wearers are more likely to have a concealed carry. They have the money, and are from the right demographics.
Yeah in any case it will end badly for you if not the first time then eventually. Who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
It just takes one unlucky time where the other person doesn’t subscribe to the idea of proportional response or has military training with muscle memory that takes over.
It’s weird how y’all are so desperate to catastrophize responses, and then want to call other people “internet badasses”. Look in the mirror next time you tell someone they’re going to get shot, bud. You’re the problem.
It doesn’t seem like catastrophizing when discussing how people might react to a stranger attacking them. Hitting someone in the face hard enough to knock off their glasses isn’t exactly some silly little thing that people would be ridiculous to respond to. It is an attack and people would likely perceive it as such. Plenty of people would just be stunned and do nothing, but plenty of people carry and go to the range every weekend just waiting for someone to try something.
When stranger assaults you, every person with some practical military training is going to want to neutralise target as fast as possible because this is the survival strategy that is hammered into your muscle memory.
There is no thinking or musing whether they just want to slap you or I don’t know what. You don’t know your attacker and their intentions.
This is the real world. I don’t know why you would think this is some kind of stupid game to go around and slap people. It will cause problems.
Not sure why you're being downvoted, except that you might be overgeneralizing on former military. Some people can kick your ass badly without a knife or gun, like military/ex-military.
Shooting someone for breaking your glasses would be an act of murder. Even shooting someone for slapping you in the face would be an act of murder. Clearly you don't have experience with firearms or the legislation around them, or you would be aware of this.
I am sure there will be plenty of time for legal musings after the funeral. You could watch trial from above if afterlife exists and has good internet connection
Okay — but it’s effective:
Now the discussion is about how Facebook glasses are offensive and worn by murderous psychos who take creep shots of their neighbors.
> Look, the previous commenter has legitimate question how can we do it for real.
I gave parent the term "adversarial fashion" as an answer to their query, they should look that up.
While I'd like to agree with you, and do in some cases, there are many cases where this just isn't a feasible approach. For example, a peer coworker has a pair of these. I just don't interact with her while she is wearing them. If my boss were to get a pair there is no way I can justify slapping them off his face.
It’s also at least simple assault, and quite possibly aggravated assault on someone that has a sophisticated camera pointed at your face that’s sending biometrics, images, and probably video back to one of the worst privacy offenders on the planet.
Feels great to say it. Would feel great to do it. Morally defensible to anyone that knows anything about privacy if the person isn’t low-vision or something. In reality, a terrifically stupid idea.
I don't think you could justify slapping them off of anybody's face unless you really just like to assault people.
Streaming someone live to Meta, potentially the most evil company in the world (not "per employee" but by "damage done per day") without their permission, especially in a place where this is not at a expected - like an office rather than a football stadium - is great justification. It ticks all the boxes.
Yeah, it ticks all of the boxes that HR loves to tick before firing you with cause
They're incredibly popular in the blind community, and for good reason.
I think even the political activists will be extremely divided on this one. You have privacy on one hand, accessibility and a genuinely life-changing technology on the other.
Yeah, this could be the "lost dog" approach that Ring was trying. I feel for the blind. But in weighing their concern against everyone else's... they should get a different supplier.
Do blind people not care about data privacy? Most likely they do and should ask for good TOS now while still possible.
Blind user here. Reality is, we are so disadvantaged in this world that we will gladly accept any tool that is useful. Almost nobody would ever read the TOS. Its a bit like with cars... Sure, there are some urban exceptions, but truth is, if you ask someone to give up their car, they will laugh you out the door.
I'm sorry that you are in this predicament. Many rely on these tools. When something finally works, few are going to walk away because of a long terms of service most of us will never read. That doesn't mean you don't care about privacy though, it just means you are forced into a tradeoff.
With AI glasses like the ones Meta is pushing, the device is not just helping you. It is recording. Photos and videos can be sent back to company servers. Reports show that human reviewers can see very private footage users never meant to share. That includes sensitive personal moments. The device is basically an always-on camera tied to a giant data company.
If you depend on that device to understand the world, that makes you more vulnerable, not less. If ads, errors, or AI hallucinations start shaping what you hear about your surroundings, that affects your only channel of perception. If your daily life is constantly captured and stored, that affects your autonomy.
So yes, many of us will still use the tech. But that is exactly why pushing for strong, clear privacy terms now matters. Accessibility should not mean giving up control over your own life.
Sure, every interaction in society is a tradeoff... However, I must destroy your dreams. Being disabled almost always means surrendering control over your own life to others. Or, better phrased, constantly fighting to keep control from being taken away from you by external, mostly well meaning, forces. But I get it, really. No need to ELI5. I hope the "you" in your explanation was rethorical... because if it wasn't, I definitely feel talked down to. I read the article we are commenting. I am well aware about the problem of hallucination, especially when image LLMs get used to describe the world. I have even done my own empirical tests to get a feel of the extent of the problem. All my comment was trying to say is, that when it comes to assistive technologies which actually provide value, idiology and privacy concerns pretty much go out the window very very fast, much faster then the average HN reader might assume. That is why Meta glasses are very popular amongst the visually impaired. Or do you seriously suggest they (we) are all so naiv as to not know what kind of deal we just struck with the devil?
Full disclosure: I don't own Meta glasses (yet), but I know some users and observe rollout amongst assistive technology resellers.
I don't have much of an objection to Blind people wearing these, but there are all kinds of things that are OK to do with a disability that aren't OK to do if you don't need special accomodation.
They shouldn't be divided, they should (wo)man up and say the thing they well know out loud: the harms to society are not worth it, the societal consequences of Meta being in control of this are severe and will, as always, hurt the weak and poor the most. Unfortunately the blind community will have to wait a few more years to get a local version, which is guaranteed to appear with how things are going.
High end phones these days run smaller LLMs sorta fine.
And?
Accessibility never really prevented anyone to do shit which breaks it. Remember CAPTCHAs?
(and I am blind, I know what I am talking about)
Have you tried bringing it up with HR? If you explain why you try to avoid her while she's wearing them, they might ask her to stop wearing them to work.
Meta's own guidelines[1] say that you should "Power off in private spaces."
You can't always tell if you're being recorded since they can be tampered with to disable the LED. And from what I gather, the LED only serves to indicate of video recording, and not necessarily audio.
[1]: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/privacy/
does your workplace allow recording coworkers without their permission?
In the office? No. But at lunch or outside of the office is not controlled by work place policy.
You could always say you're not comfortable being processed and uploaded to Meta. If they wear the glasses at their desks replacing their screen , that's fair game.
Lololol that's really good.
I would acquit
It's also an assault, with intrinsic video evidence of the crime committed.
Exactly, not only you agree to any sort of harm (potentially fatal) in return by any sort of weapons that person has you can’t see, they can just do nothing and record you and you have problems with police and serve short sentence even.
This is all children talk here. Seriously people stop being so edgy on the internet and what you wouldn’t do. Use your god damn brain
Yes, cops will jump right on someone getting slapped. That definitely sounds like reality. Good call.
Do you guys ever like, go outside?
Plenty of places in the US are not large dense urban cities, and the cops will absolutely respond to a battery call. Like every time.
Plenty of places this would be the most interesting call of the day for a police force and you'd have 5 squad cars show up.
Other places won't even bother responding to the call. Your mileage will greatly vary.
while noble, basically any western system will punish such behaviour as assault ... perhaps this point could be expressed as a prefererence for the law to change such that deprivation of privacy becomes a valid self defense argument ... in the meantime there do exist passive defenses such as face masks designed to interfere with facial recognition
Take out your phone, hold it up, and record them back. Get others to do it too for extra comical effect.
Honestly I’d love to hear from someone who actually owns one of these things how doing this is any different than using the glasses.
This seems like the most obvious, legal, and direct way to stigmatize use of these glasses. Put a phone up to their face and say “I might be recording you.”
Exactly. If you do this and the wearer says something like “I’m not even recording bro” the perfect response is “I’m not either”
and turn on the flashlight while recording
I've always wanted to sew very bright IR LEDs into a hat that would blind a camera. Your face would naturally be shadowed by the bill of the hat as that's its intended purpose. The IR would hopefully make the camera want to adjust shutter speed and gain/ISO while assuming a fixed aperture lens.
There was a fictional version of this in the Artemis Fowl books. My old camcorder picked up a lot of IR outside of visible range, but I think newer sensors are much less susceptible to this.
IIUC bright IR LEDs can harm your eyes if you stare at them too long.
Wasn't there something about how the LIDAR in self-driving cars destroys camera sensors?
https://old.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/1i6zryi/reports_of_15...
Now to find a way to make 1550nm lidar glasses to burn out any cameras pointed directly at your face
Depends what your threat model is, but this will literally turn you into a glowing signal that says "hey, look at me!" Your face might be protected but anyone manually reviewing security footage will be paying way more attention.
When did we change the subject from fucking the Meta to hiding from security cameras?
Meta isn't the only camera that might be pointed at you at any given time.
> Are there any less obviously aggressive tactics we can use?
If you are in the US, and hopefully in a state that is open to blocking this sort of thing, be very vocal and persistent with your state reps about the issue. Get others to join. I am curious if this will be legal within the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act or a couple other states with similar laws
Email corporate security and the chief privacy officer with logs of who is wearing spy glasses. Remind them Facebook controls where that data is stored and who has access to it. Ask how to respond to auditors inquiring about it leave off, "in the future audits".
- Or -
Walk around with a vlogger camera that has a large microphone. If anyone takes issue, say "I'm the 5th person here walking around recording everyone today. The others are using a spy camera in their glasses."
- Or -
Borrow a pair of them when in public at a restaurant and loudly say, "Oh my god! These AI smart glasses really do remove everyone's clothing, even on the children!" be ready to run.
_________________
Only do these things if you typically rock the boat regardless. i.e. often try and fail to get fired or arrested.
water to the face ?
Would that work ?
Seems benign enough that its not going to earn you a visit to the judge, but should disable most electronics, no?
Who of us hasn't accidentally performed a spit take of a mouth full of beer into someone's face?
For android users: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.ne...
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!
While I don’t disagree, with the sentiment, is this not incitement of violence?
Yes. The company is inciting violent behaviour with socially disturbing products.
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.
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.
The person responsible for high level corporate strategy at Meta is surely not Gen Z but boomer or millennial.
That person is surely a lizard person, generation or wider societal norms don't matter.
The point I was trying to make is it's becoming easier to staff companies with dubious moral standings.
Gen X
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.
> 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.
Yep. Once a couple of nerds got rich, it's what that segment pointed their money finders at. Advertising / marketing went with them.
It was a much nicer place for everyone when it was just the nerds who "had love for the game" :(
The same can be said about those working in the weapons industry etc.
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)
Of course they have a choice, just like you do. You're making excuses for them that they don't need. They're actively choosing the "work at Meta and maintain lifestyle" rather than "don't work at Meta and maybe slightly change lifestyle". Every day, they make that choice.
Take all the people who get and got laid off. Their life goes on.
> responsiblities that come with obvious, healthy, lifestyle choices (i.e. marriage and kids)
99.9999% of people in the world who are married with kids, don't work at Meta.
Unfortunately, because 99.999% of people in the world are “customers” of Meta, making profit for Meta, the 0.001% of people who do work at Meta are paid like relative kings.
I think you're arguing with a point I didn't make. I'm not excusing anyone. I'm describing a mechanism in response to "I cannot comprehend why." Here, why people stay in situations they might privately find distasteful. That's a different project than assigning moral grades.
"They have a choice" is of course literally true. It's also not very interesting? Everyone always has a choice in the tautological sense. The question the parent raised was how do people live with it, and the answer is: the same way people live with all kinds of things. Incrementally, surrounded by context that makes it feel normal, with stakes that feel high relative to their baseline, not yours.
Your 99.9999% stat kind of makes my point for me. Those people also didn't get a $400k offer from Meta. The trap isn't marriage+kids, it's young + don't know better + land there + marriage + kids+a lifestyle calibrated to a specific income, plus the identity that comes with it. The golden handcuffs thing is a cliché because it's real.
None of this is a defense of working on things you find unconscionable. It's just that "they could simply choose not to" has never once in history been a sufficient explanation of human behavior.
Your phrasing just didn't match your point.
> I have something really priceless and rare, complete luxury of choice, and 99% of people don't
People working at Meta are almost without exception, people who have more luxury of choice than nearly anyone on the planet. It's very important to keep repeating this, and not say the direct opposite as you did. You can make your point without doing so.
You keep restating that Meta employees are enormously privileged as though that contradicts me. It doesn't - it's the premise. The entire phenomenon I'm describing, in response to "I cannot comprehend why", is that privilege and felt optionality are different things, and the gap between them is where people get stuck.
So what you have over them isn't freedom of choice, it's knowledge of your freedom of choice. That's a very important difference.
Partly, but that flattens it. It's not just awareness, the actual cost of exit is different. Me walking away from a job means I’m a little more lonely, that’s it. I never sold any stock until I left, I’m down $5K total in 3 years. A Meta engineer with a family walking away means pulling kids out of school, selling a house, a spouse's life getting upended. Those aren't the same choice with different levels of self-knowledge. They're materially different choices.
> 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.
The lack of self awareness is pretty fascinating.
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.
Suck has made his mind up about which side he’s on with his money. I recall a time when people on the Forbes list were quietly political.
Right, this is socipathy, kleptocracy and pure madness that having more money than need generates.
Accurate description of META.
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.
care-less people, etc...
This is unironically what happens when society rewards sociopaths
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.
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.
The actual source article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...
It could auto blur faces... but people wouldn't use that feature.
That shouldn't be too difficult with the current US administration. Maybe another reason Bezos and Trump get along so well
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
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.
If I were Meta's lawyer I would advise them to definitely put into writing how they are fully conscious that this is wrong.
> 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
It's painfully obvious to me society cannot do two things at once. You focus on one shared goal as a culture or everything falls apart very rapidly - as we are seeing today. It's why a common external "enemy" (e.g competitor, nation state, culture, whatever) has historically been so important.
The shared goal can be complex in nature, which requires many disciplines to come together to achieve it via a series of many parallel activities that might look like they are all doing something random, but it's all in the service of that singular shared goal.
This holds true from my experience at the national level all the way down to small organizations.
Damn you’re right. I got so annoyed at the headline I didn’t even read the article so that’s on me
Yeah its more like "quick, its friday night and someone just got bombed, toggle that feature on"
> 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.
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.
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?
I feel the same way every time I read that someone did something "quietly" in a headline.
Less attention on you, less negative press, better sales.
Well to an extent, it does work. Flood the zone.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And yet we are surrounded by cameras that do this constantly
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.
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...
Yes here in Europe too. I really love this.
You can keep your phone here but the cameras are taped off. Of course that can easily be undone but it avoids the "oh sorry I forgot it wasn't allowed" excuse.
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.
The teenagers I know willing put geo-tracking software on their phones to see where their friends are at any time.
Yeah, and that's consensual. Being recorded by some creep with cringe VR glasses is nothing like that.
Really? The ones living on tiktok?
Don't be dense. They control what they upload to social media and they mostly do it within closed circles (close friends, etc). Being recorded without consent is another story.
Yes, they’re the ones afraid of some creep surreptitiously recording them and posting it on TikTok.
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.
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.
they look like big bulky ray-bans that no one would wear unless they were starring in a 50s remake or something . easy to spot
The Wayfarer style was always bulky, they have been a fashion staple for decades at this point. The Meta gen2 ones aren't really that noticeably larger than "normal" Wayfarers - probably why they latched on this style as it gives the most room to stuff electronics while remaining similar sized to the original Wayfarer design.
I still see folks wearing Wayfarers almost every single day, and have owned various (non-Meta) pairs of them for most of my adult life. It's literally one of the most popular sunglasses designs of all time.
As an aside, it’s crazy that Ray Ban would hitch their most valuable brand cachet to such a controversial wagon
Meta have a minority stake in Ray Ban and Oakley's parent company, EssilorLuxottica. The investment was largely to support development of future AI glasses. It does make me a little sad to see Wayfarers end up this way too.
> https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/meta-takes-around-3-sta...
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.
they are still very easy to spot. they are very bulky around the rims
If you know what to look for, yes. But the average person doesn't browse Hacker News and watch tech YT videos in their free time and has likely not even heard of them.
Case in point: @http-teapot's reply to my comment
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.
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.
I have a strict policy of no Meta glasses for guests in my house. Socially, they're poison.
We have "NO meta glasses" rule at my workplace.
There is almost always an appropriate XKCD...
https://xkcd.com/1807/
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.
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.
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".
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
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.
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.
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.
Yeah sometimes the younger gym bros are in the dressing room at my gym taking pictures of themselves in the mirror. If they accidentally include my ~60 year old ass cheeks in the background, IDGAF. Probably ruins the photo for them.
You should care, if they post it to socials then you are further tracked and online in at least one more sketchy database, and half naked as well.
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.
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.
i actually agree with this take; i dont see the problem that smart glasses solve. what, my phone screen isnt literally in front of my eyeballs 24/7? i have a need to be absolutely plugged into scrolling social media and consuming content so much that i just have to have the screen in my glasses? this feels much more like what tech companies want people to want rather than what people want.
Not to mention the input methods just suck major ass. They're extremely slow, error prone, and annoying. Hands are better.
And that's why I don't talk to Siri to drive my car.
I wouldn't be surprised if secured smart glasses were a useful tool in a corporate environment. By secured I mean the software stack fully controlled by corporate IT and only for use on premise. Most places will already have pervasive surveillance cameras and in a work context they might actually prove useful if used in conjunction with other computing devices.
Or maybe not. Tablets are impressively portable and the screen is probably good enough.
first let me say i agree its a solution looking for a problem
you can still take the glasses off. i dont own glasses but do use vr and the shift between putting on/taking off a headset feels more intentional than the glance at a phone. feels less addictive to me. maybe lightweight glasses and dark patterns will "fix" that eventually
You don't want your hands free?
to do what? We've already had this experiment in the form of phone calling and texting. And that's not technological because both are mature. People vastly prefer the latter. It's discrete, faster and asynchronous. In the same vein, does anyone actually use their Alexa?
To do work with your hands.
I was just in a datacenter deploying a bunch of infrastructure while coordinating with remote network operations and sysadmin teams. It was damn annoying having to constantly check my phone for new slack messages, or deal with Siri reading back messages in it's incompetent manner. I missed quite a few time sensitive messages like "move that fiber from port A to port B" due to noise or getting busy with another task and kept folks waiting for longer than needed.
In limited circumstances having a wearable "HUD" interface would be quite nice. Especially if it had great screen quality and I could do things like see a port mapping/network diagram/blueprints/whatever while doing the actual work. Would save considerable time vs. having to look down at a laptop or phone screen and lose my place in the physical wire loom or whatnot. Having an integrated crash cart (e.g. via wireless dongles) would be even more exciting.
That's just one recent task that comes to mind.
There are plenty of real world hands-on jobs where this would be quite helpful. So long as it's not connected to meta or the cloud or anything other than a local device or work network.
For a more general use-case I have what amounts to minor facial blindness/forgetfulness of names. I need to study your face for a long time over many interactions to actually remember you. Something as simple as wearing glasses vs. not can mean I will not recognize someone I've spent months interacting with multiple times a week.
I've long wished I had some way to implant something in my brain that would give the equivalent of video game name avatars superimposed over someone's head. For totally non-nefarious reasons, just names of folks I previously have met pulled from my contacts list. Obviously this is unlikely to ever be a socially acceptable thing due to recording and other potential abuses - but I have thought this for at least 25 years now - before the privacy concerns became obvious. Wishful thinking, but I can imagine myriad of uses for such technology if it didn't enable such a wide-spread number of potential abuses.
Wasn't the point of smart watches to have something even more readily accessible than a phone? I'd never want one of those dorky things, but they sell
While that may have been the original motivator, they have largely settled into a niche as a sort of fitness sensor. People do not typically use apps on them.
VR most definitely solves a real problem, but the issue with VR is the absolute setup complexity to get it performing 'correctly'. I spent 3 years tweaking mine and writing OpenXR layers to get it functioning how I wanted it to in iRacing. It's nearly a full-time job. VR right now is like if you went to buy eggs but instead of eggs they're grenades and opening the box pulled all the pins. Out of the box experience is beyond dog shit and impossible for casual users, leaving a very small avenue for VR enjoyment for regulars (PSVR and the like). I cannot think of a technology more diametric to 'plug n play' than VR, which is very unfortunate.
> I cannot think of a technology more diametric to 'plug n play' than VR, which is very unfortunate.
Ironically that's exactly what the Quest solved with SLAM, it really is plug and play, otherwise I would not have bought one... and it sucks that Meta now owns it, but it really is still the best "just works" VR.
I also don't think VR has much potential to solve real world problems for enough people, but it doesn't have to because it's pretty good entertainment as a gaming device (albeit still fairly niche).
navigational overlay and real time translation/subtitles would be huge, just off the top of my head
Come on, it's obviously a hardware problem. If phones weighed ten pounds I wouldn't carry that around either.
Great glasses would solve a problem, I could take my stupid phone out of my hand.
And glasses will get replaced by contacts, which get replaced with brainwave tech.
> Great glasses would solve a problem, I could take my stupid phone out of my hand.
And do what? For calls you've long been able to use a wireless headset. Otherwise most tasks involve frequent user input. Do you really want to be constantly waving your hands around in the air in front of your face? That sounds tiring at best.
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.
I think you have missed the wristband input device then. It gives the user fairly subtle finger gestures to interact with the device. I wonder how far that input tech can be pushed, not necessarily (only) in comination with glasses.
The point isn't to allow people to do more with the glasses, the point is to interpose between the user and the physical world so you can control what they see and hear and so you can see what they see. You could see the same thing with Apple's VR headset -- if you can hide certain things from your own view in the headset, then Apple can hide things they don't want you to see too.
There isn't really a counter to that because most people will buy these things to watch movies on the airplane or the train, and they won't see the yoke until it's too late.
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).
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.
Remember those dorky Bluetooth earpieces? The ones only MBA nerds wore? They were uncool until the AirPods came along.
The tail wags the dog. Wearing glasses may become inherently cool if all the cool people in your insta feeds are wearing them.
There is a UI difference between looking into a camera and talking to someone with headphones on.
The parent was talking about people choosing to wear these. Today there might be reluctance to wear them because they're creepy or uncool. But that mirrors the reluctance for cool kids to wear bluetooth earpieces back when they were those chunky Borg-looking things. Then they got shrunk down. They got "high quality, convenient, [and] light".
When these types of glasses are virtually indistinguishable from regular sunglasses, and a critical mass of cool people wear them all the time, the reluctance from the rest of us will melt away.
I hope I'm wrong. Really.
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
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.
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
> 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.
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."
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
Legal doesn't mean socially acceptable. Neither does it mean good.
The last two items on your list (person, drone) likely constitute stalking outside of specific limited situations.
> Implement some form of right to forget
The passive voice here is deceptive. When rephrased as the right to make others forget it suddenly seems quite nefarious (at least to me).
I agree with your first point - but Meta and other organizations don't really have to act in a socially acceptable manner at their scale. Creating laws at least opens the door to legal action to keep them in line.
My last two bullets intentionally walked the line on stalking and spoke to some of the arguments law enforcement have attempted to use to nefariously surveil the public without a warrant [0].
I also have a difficult time jamming 'right to forget' through the first amendment protections in the United States but it does provide some protection/agency to individuals to protect their identity.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/warrantless-pol...
It's not a legal problem but a cultural one. Piracy, for example, is already illegal, but everyone does it.
Smartphones and social media apps made it frictionless to post public videos on the Internet. The only legislation that could be effective would be to forbid social media from hosting videos of public places somehow, and I'm not sure how effective or practical would that even be.
We live in a world where people have a literal phone in their hands and they would rather make a video call than a simple phone call. Something needs to happen to fundamentally change people's habits or it will only get worse in the future.
It can happen if it’s not easy to tell immediately what they are.
The google glasses deliberately looked distinct from normal glasses. The facebook glasses don't. That has a massive impact.
>>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.
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.
> 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.
Great, let's regulate it! And why are glasses more offensive than cell phone cameras, or go pros, or drones? I genuinely do not understand why people don't worry about the other form factors, but draw the line at the glasses, so help me here. To be clear - I understand why people find being recorded creepy. I don't understand why the glasses form factor is creepy but random cell phone recordings that are shared on the internet all the time without the consent of the recorded people aren't.
tl;dr It's the difference between possessing a camera and actively pointing it at someone.
Think about the practical aspect of it. I have to point my phone at you to record you. It's really quite conspicuous. It's also mildly inconvenient for me so I won't be doing it the vast majority of the time.
Whereas the glasses point wherever you're looking, are expected to be recording constantly, and are expected to do things with the data involving third parties. It's the same as a VR headset except in that case the expectation is that the footage is neither sent anywhere nor even retained, merely presented live to the user as if he were looking at you (and his face is already point in your direction).
"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.
I'm going to guess that someone who can afford smart glasses can afford to have another pair of unsmart glasses. What is it about the _glasses_ that people find creepier than a smartphone that can literally do even more invasive things than the current glasses technology?
It's very obvious when someone is recording you with a smartphone
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.
They do have a light that’s on when recording
Well, then they gonna offer implants in another 5-10 years later.
2026 is not 2012
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.
Agreed, it is creepy and I tell people to take them off if they come to my home.
They're okay in your circle today? Not mine.
Anecdotal screeching aside, they’re objectively selling far better than any headgear ever made. The sales figures show they’re pretty popular as far as wearables go. That leads me to believe we’re not in the same world as Google glass especially when back then folks were far more trusting of tech (let alone the fact that it’s meta).
The times I do I see folks wearing them the normie reaction is typically “oh cool” and not some libertarian allergic reaction to technology.
I don’t know what the downvote is about. I’ve not said anything for or against this tech or the company that makes it. I just don’t think it’s valuable to inform your world view on tech takes that are old enough to be taking the practice SAT.
> I don’t know what the downvote is about.
> screeching
> libertarian allergic reaction to technology
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.
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.
> They also don't automatically send video into the cloud to be analyzed by a human for AI training,
Yet.
They almost certainly already do. If you just look into Axon you'll see they have tons of cloud-based and AI products. Axon is the major player in police body cameras in the US.
No experience w/ Axon, but I work adjacent their major competitor. I don't know about the whole "training AI" angle, but Motorola Watchguard body and in-car cameras absolutely upload to a hosted service.
Uploading to a hosted service is not even remotely the same thing. In one of the jurisdictions I'm familiar with the Axon cams don't record until manually activated and the footage is treated as secured evidence. Other than being subject to FOIA or analyzed for a case it isn't generally accessible.
That said I'm not sure how much of that is merely department policy versus local law.
In Spain the typical doorbell camera is illegal. In an apartment building it is illegal to have a camera on the door that points into "common" areas even though these are still private areas vis-a-vis the general public.
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.
Door bells also had a popular movie made that revolved around their use: Weapons.
And that didn’t raise an uproar of suspicion even as one character went door to door asking if he could look at his neighbors recordings.
People are comfortable with the idea of being recorded, so long as accessing many recordings is a drawn out and manual process.
Eh, doorbell cams aren’t that controversial (ad aside). A lot of people have them already, both from ring (with the concomitant privacy issues) or from other providers (with different but similar issues).
They’re controversial on hacker news but I don’t think people in the “real world” care all that much.
How that connects to the meta glasses is certainly up for debate —- the doorbells provide a lot of value to the user (know who is at the door remotely!), the glasses are more of a mixed bag.
I would say that people outside of tech aren't aware of the implications and potential use of the data.
Once people realize, they begin to reject. This is why I mentioned the superbowl ad and it shouldn't be waved away as an outlier.
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.
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.
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.
> body cameras had no statistically significant impact on officer use of force, civilian complaints, or arrests for disorderly conduct by officers. In other words, body cameras did not reduce police misconduct . . . 92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians, while just 8.3 percent have used it to prosecute police officers[1]
Cops control when the cameras are filming, if footage is retained and what/when/if footage is released. Body cams are just yet another surveillance tool against the population.
[1]https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/will-body-cameras-help-end-poli...
> 92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians
I'd suggest browsing body cam footage on youtube for a bit. If you see the sort of stuff being prosecuted it might not bother you.
If it hasn't reduced police use of force or misconduct (I find this claim questionable) I think that's unfortunate but regardless it's important to implement systems that document that to the greatest extent possible. If we do that today then maybe it can be reduced tomorrow.
That means far less than you might think. As long as officer testimony is given a privileged status the courtroom there’s minimal risk to civilians that body cameras are making things worse for them.
100% percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used officer testimony as evidence to prosecute civilians. Meanwhile I suspect the use of officer testimony is even more lopsided in favor of cops.
Evidence against them improving behavior isn't evidence they're a significant surveillance tool.
And the biggest fix there is you need to not let them control it.
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.
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.
"Surveillance Camera Man"[1] makes a good practical example of it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9sVqKFkjiY
It might be the line in the sand now, but it probably won’t be for long.
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.
Some doorbell cams film other people's homes.
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.
People want to be deceived.
As a dev, I think the core issue isn’t whether one indicator LED can be bypassed — motivated people can bypass almost any client-side control. The trust boundary is policy + defaults. If enabling “AI features” implicitly authorizes broad retention/review, users won’t understand the tradeoff until after the fact.
A better pattern would be tiered modes with explicit UX: local-only capture, cloud processing without retention, and opt-in retention/training with visible status. If the product can’t technically support that separation today, that limitation should be stated plainly in setup, not buried in policy docs.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
"Hell is other people."
> 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.
Sooo... I really should start keepin running this[1] all the time...
https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses/
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yet, it’s a life saver for blind people
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)
There is an app called Be My Eyes where blind people can use the app to be connected to someone who can see and ask questions. An example might be, “is this a red or brown sweater.”
It actually looks like it added AI functionality, so not every question goes out to a live helper, but they still do have that option.
Something like the Meta glasses could mean a lot less reliance on app that reach out to actual people, or looking for the phone all the time, for day-to-day help with things like this.
Thanks for the edge case! Edited.
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.
They could also help with color-blindness and face-blindness.
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
Incel glasses sounds better imo.
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.
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).
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.
FWIW I have Bose Frames which are great and do the same thing minus the camera.
Is anyone here actually surprised Meta is recording and reviewing their content?
Vote with your dollars people.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, that's fair enough. My neighborhood doesn't have that so it's fairly easy to avoid the use of Facebook.
I still spend too much arguing on HN but not as much as I was on Facebook and the audience here is generally more educated and so the arguments aren't as mind-numbing.
> 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.
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.
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.
I would have been the first to talk about meta being horrible for privacy and this goes even further than what I expected, which was:
- they have the opportunity to save the video feed at any time - they are probably storing some kind of metadata of the feed, maybe some kind of analysis output - someone could hypothetically watch it
I thought it was dangerous because I thought they could do what they're doing, but I didn't think that right now they actually were and so overtly
I am also surprised, but not because I believe Meta to care about the ethics of the whole thing. After all their privacy scandals, I’d assume they’d have policies in place to prevent something that can so easily be leaked. But here we are
The thing is it's not just surprising from a privacy standpoint but also from an engineering standpoint -- this sounds very data-, power-, and storage-intensive, in a device that's very constrained on all sides, so it wouldn't have even occurred to me this was a possibility. When are they even uploading all the videos without blowing through their power budget and internet data limits? Are they heavily compressing it to like one frame per second or something?
> data limits
The data required is small. Each embedding might be 1/2 kB per face.
> power budget
To process a video for biometric feature extraction, it might take 0.5% to 2% of the total power used to record a video. Video uses a lot of power (compression, screen, etc)
Assuming you've got a modern device (e.g. with Apple Neutral Engine). Disclosure: Googled info (Gemini).
> The data required is small. Each embedding might be 1/2 kB per face.
"Embedding"? This is what the article says:
"In some videos you can see someone going to the toilet, or getting undressed. I don’t think they know, because if they knew they wouldn’t be recording."
You're saying they're watching "embedding"s here?
Amazon Siri?
I find it extremely naive too. I expect much worse than this from Meta and I am often amazed at just what it is going to take for people to realize what Meta is and does. I mean it is not like we have 11 million examples of what and who they are. In this story I would have expected additionally that Meta would notice little bit of cellulite in the woman that was changing and then having the employees call her husband to tell them to surprise her with amazing cream he should buy her for their upcoming anniversary (and if this was actually part of the story I would be able to continue on top of this and would not be surprised if true).
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.
I’m not sure what sort of signals you’ve gotten from Meta that would suggest they are above this type of behavior?
> I’m not sure what sort of signals you’ve gotten from Meta that would suggest they are above this type of behavior?
It wasn't Meta's morals that gave me any signals to that effect. It was the potential legal minefield on top of the engineering challenges [1] that made it so I didn't even consider this as a possibility. In fact I'm still confused. I don't understand how they would be pulling this off despite those challenges, and I would love to.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47225772
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Strange strategy? Are you new to humanity?
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
We need safe spaces where you aren't constantly living inside the panopticon...
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.)
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
Better response than "Somewhat smaller than average"
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.
Ah, maybe he shouldn't have shared that. Or at least aimed for something larger than a thumb.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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?
The whole project is a Creepy privacy nightmare.
Of course! Glasses with cameras are a classic secret spy gadget :)
Workers can see everything" means this isn't an AI privacy problem. It's a surveillance-as-a-service problem with extra steps.
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.
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.
How does your phone's camera? Ultimately, it's up to users to obey laws with their recording devices.
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!
They are! This Tesla feature is illegal to use in Germany and Austria.
[1] (in German) https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000215526/aktueller-fal...
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.
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.
Doesn't matter when everybody around you has one.
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.
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.
"certain faces", they're definitely saying it doesn't blur non-white/black faces properly..
The title is now “She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says”
Is it paranoid to assume every device with a camera/mic can see/hear everything?
That's my default assumption.
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
Crazy to have 1 trillion invested in data centers, underpinned by dollar-a-day human turk ops
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll be sure to strap a GoPro to my forehead on a daily basis so I can take impromptu footage of stuff.
this is like telling people who use smartphones to carry a laptop with a cell modem card
Glasses can superimpose ads over everything in your field of vision.
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.
> 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!
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.
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?
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...
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.)
Despite the historical misadventures of Meta, if people still use their products with an expectation of privacy, it's on the people.
Surely this is already happening with our other devices? Not that it isn't a problem but that the game is already lost...?
The privacy angle here is fascinating. Curious if anyone has tried running the on-device model locally yet?
I would really love to use smart glasses for DevOps, especially Grafana dashboards
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.
Also creeps can just easily search to see how to disable the light anyways.
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?
True, can't even be taken for a real safeguard to begin with. It's there so Meta can say they tried :)
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"
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.
> Meta
> Privacy
Pick one.
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.
Trump-Epstein Glasses
Meta glasses will scare people in public because they think they are being recorded even though they are not..
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?
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.
There must be a special place reserved for Mark Zuckerberg in hell
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...
This simply needs to be criminalized.
Basicially it is a peeping tom.
Too funny that the subcontractor working for meta is “sama”
Not all technology is good.
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
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?
These glasses are godd one
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.
"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."
-Mark Zuckerberg, 2004
That quote illustrates the tension between tech companies and user trust. The evolution of privacy concerns is significant, especially given the data these devices can now collect.
oh come on, who of us didn't go through a power-tripping edge lord phase? i too had a community game server once...
Because we should hold the most powerful people to the highest standard, not the lowest one.
It seems his values aren’t much better now. Too bad his company is so successful.
Remember when facebook was busted playing silent audio so the app could stay active in the background? I honestly don't think there's a company I trust less than facebook/meta. And it's because the rot is at the top, and has always been there.
No. I did a search and found this though:
https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/22/facebook-says-it-fixed-a-b...
Supposedly it was a bug, but with Facebook, who knows.
And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
>The other issue, that Facebook was running a silent audio stream in the background, is also called out. Grant says this was unintentional, and that it was not being used to keep the app alive — yet it did as a byproduct of the bug.
How much issue tracking and scrum management and engineering work and code review and testing and deployment and maintenance went into accidentally streaming silent audio that you only stop doing after you got caught and have to claim all that successfully tested and deployed work was unintentional, without ever explaining the actual innocuous purpose of streaming silent audio and paying for all that extra bandwidth?
I was just reading a comment on HN yesterday about how MacOS had so many bugs. I guess they don't have issue tracking, scrum management, engineering work, code review, testing, deployment, and maintenance either.
I hate FB, but not everything is always a sinister plan, although this could have been. I will repeat: "with Facebook, who knows."
"phase"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Part of it is civics. You have the right to record in public. Being in a public space means you are consenting to being recorded; it's in public. It's not always moral, classy, correct, or good, but the alternative is the erosion of the principles of free press, freedom of expression, etc.
The form factor of the camera doesn't matter. We do have different constraints, but those are pretty solidly filled out in case law. I don't believe making recording glasses illegal to wear in public would withstand constitutional scrutiny. Mandating a visible notification with a conventional color, signaling things like "on" "passive" and "recording" would be constitutional and wouldn't infringe. That said, surreptitious use would likely be legal, e.g. aftermarket modification to allow recording with no lights; first amendment issues have a high bar and all sorts of secret camera precedents being legal. This is how corrupt politicians and cops and officials get caught, all the time, and it's highly unlikely to be smart glasses that gets the people and courts to flip on 1A.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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...
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.
> 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.
What you expect does not have to be what you strive for.
"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.)
Who would even expect any privacy from the Facebook mafia? The rename to "Meta" doesn't obscure the fact that they are bottomfeeders.
Oh look a flock competitor
If you're in public you have no privacy by default.
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"?
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.
Did you make a wrong turn? /r/asshat is over there ->
You posted a message in "Who wants to be hired" at almost the same time as you posted this. Do you think a potential recruiter would read your comment history?
Sigh
I really don't care. I am a free man
this should be known by everyone
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.
While true, that doesn't make it acceptable. In a functioning society, companies would be punished harshly for this behaviour.
> In a functioning society
Have you been alive for the past decade?
Obviously he thinks society is functioning for HIM just fine. What's your problem?
It's because they never have been meaningfully punished and won't be that this happens and will continue to happen. Act accordingly.
all societies are dysfunctional...
[inserts image of a smiling Mark Zuckerberg walking in the middle of unsuspecting attendees wearing VR headsets]
That image always felt dystopian to me
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?
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?
See also: Twitter's csam/revenge porn generator. Pervert market is apparently big right now.
>What market is there for it beyond creeps? Or is that the hot thing right now?
I mean... have you been reading the news?
It's genuinely uncanny to see good tech journalism.. it's normally so much worse than this
You can thank Sweden in this case
Meta needs to make a find-your-lost-dog commercial for their smart glasses ASAP.
Can someone just make one using AI and share it?
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 ...
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
Likewise, are there any startup for wearable devices that visually jam or impair digital cameras?
Can we just get Robert Scoble to come back and destroy these, please?
I already personally refuse to be around anyone who wears them. And I think establishments should just outright ban them.
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.
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.
This is facebook. I wouldn't trust them to turn the light on every time the camera is recording.
They do, and the glasses don't record if you cover the LED.
Just think of the children. Changing a soiled garment, transmitting video of the whole ordeal, isn't that super illegal?
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.
These things are a pedo dream.
I really hope these flop and don’t become mainstream.
It would be a surveillance and privacy dystopian nightmare.
Retest
Only Meta and Zuck would continually introduce invasive products.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Color me shocked.
"my spying glasses are spying on me"
Holy shit! This is absolutely despicable and probably the worst tech news I've read all year. Why do people still support Meta/Facebook?!?!
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!
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
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.
Hacking is so 2010s. Now you just ask big tech for the footage.
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…
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.
I thought I stated my position pretty clearly. This is like saying, “We should ban guns!” And then use a successful self-defense case as a supporting argument. Whether you agree or disagree with the thesis, I think we can all agree that’s a stupid way to make the point. But perhaps you just aren’t willing to have a genuine discussion.
You are the one nitpicking about the argument ("I agree with your point, but I will just complain about your example"), so don't be surprised if you get answers :-).
> This is like saying, “We should ban guns!” And then use a successful self-defense case as a supporting argument.
Not quite, no. It is saying "If even those people who benefit from their national security can be tracked by an actor that does not own the cameras, it means that anyone can be tracked by those cameras. Do we want foreign actors to be able to track anyone in the country, even the leadership?".
It actually makes a stronger point than "normal people who gladly share all their data can be tracked", and even stronger than "a journalist taking care not to be tracked can still be tracked". Here we have the leadership of a country that knows that they are targets, who therefore benefit from national security. And they can still be tracked.
Ok, this is a good point I hadn’t thought of. Thank you.
Anyone who has a mobile phone has been tracked by their phone provider forever, with the accuracy of a couple blocks. Smartphones only bring more trackers to the equation in the form of apps.
What's the material concern to tracking that glasses add?
Surely the difference between location tracking (that still requires a warrant for the government to get access to, thus Stingrays) and the intimate visual processing and tagging that is derived from the likes of smart glasses is self explanatory, right?
To that point, the difference between geolocation and video tracking and analysis (like Flock) seems pretty obvious to me.
It's invasively panopticon.
You can recognize a threat to national security without supporting the ideology behind it. It sounds like you are trying to to spread FUD around stronger privacy regulations. It would be a lot less funny when the shoe is on the other foot and it's not Iranian networks that's being compromised. Are you perhaps a vendor of mass surveillance systems like your username's namesake?
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
Well, I personally don’t think the answer to, “Our enemies might use the same tactics,” is to avoid entering into what I believe is a justified conflict. Besides, if you think China could push over the US without lighting the entire world on fire then I don’t know what to tell you. Nobody wants that, and they’re not stupid or religiously radical enough to pull something like that. Obviously Iran is, since they woke up yesterday at war with 2 counties and ended up at war with 7 by the end of the day. Imagine if they had nukes.
Anyway, I can be against domestic surveillance while also being willing to take advantage of my enemies’ surveillance of their own citizens.
Being "against" domestic surveillance doesn't mean shit. It's a done deal, America is surveilled by it's own government and China is actively exploiting it as an attack vector.
Get it out of your system now, these double-standards won't be funny when Taiwan is blockaded.
I’m not sure what your point is, but this doesn’t seem like a genuine attempt to engage anymore, so I guess we’re done talking.
I overall agree with your point, but I don’t think defending a country engaged in a genocide is a strong supporting argument…
Where did I defend anyone in my comment?
Edit: no, seriously, you having some personal axe to grind is no excuse for directing it at me or my comments. This is a sign of a person having a skewed perspective.
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?
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.
> 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.
Can we discuss the issue without being accusatory and interrogatory. The point of the guidelines (about titles and everything else) is so we can discuss things curiously, without getting riled up.
OK I've looked in the logs and here's what happened.
The originally submitted title was: The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything.
That title was created by the submitter; it's not the original title and it's not a verbatim line of text from anywhere in the article.
It's also, arguably, clickbait, which I gather is why another moderator changed it to: A hidden workforce behind Meta’s new smart glasses.
Their intention was to make the title less baity and be closer to a verbatim line from the article (a line in the subheading is "Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce").
That's what triggered all the complaints.
I then changed it to a title that is a verbatim string from the HTML title, with the baity part at the end removed. That is bog standard title editing of the kind I've done every day for the several years I've been doing this job.
> First-ever in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is safe, study finds
"Is safe" is not an absolutist claim, but even since your comment was submitted, another moderator has – correctly – changed "first-ever" to "first", because "first-ever" is absolutist and baity.
> 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.
What I've described above is what HN moderators do several times each day. I think the reaction to this one is because it's a topic that inherently gets people riled up (understandably), and people's riled-up-ness will spill over to any perception that we're "suppressing" the story. But we're not suppressing the story; it is still at top spot, and it will stay on the front page for several hours and everyone will have every chance to read it and discuss it.
The title we've arrived at now is the one that's most consistent with the guidelines.
> and people's riled-up-ness will spill over to any perception that we're "suppressing" the story
It’s just a hot topic. The A hidden workforce one was way off, which is why people might have got that impression. I don’t think this was intentional, but I can understand where the backlash is coming from :)
Isn’t “nothing is truly safe” a common saying on HN? Safe is an absolute term and since nothing can be safe people usually avoid using safe as a standalone attribution to something. It is usually qualified in some way.
> Safe is an absolute term
Safe is generally a gradable adjective [1], though can be non-gradable in certain contexts (like programming).
We are getting into the weeds though, aren't we?
[1] https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/b1-b2-gramma...
I was just curious. This “nothing is safe” is just burnt into my brain and simply wanted to know the reason because it sounded so far fetched that safe is not absolute. But I totally agree.
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”’.
I'm with you. I thought the title captured and represented the OG article accurately.
What's going on?
Now it's "Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns", which is a little vague.
It's very telling that this post has been sent straight to the bottom.
This tells us Meta's strategic focus for the next several quarters. This must hit a very expensive nerve.
@dang do you care explaining? This looks really terrible.
Brought to you by the CEO that tapes the webcam on his laptop
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck...
To be clear, he /puts tape over/ his webcam, that's very different from /taping/ (recording) the output of his webcam.
Nominating this as the "most HN" comment of the year.
Tape?! Tape is sooo 2016.
I 3d printed a flap for my webcam.
I will be genuinely shocked if people aren't taping their smartphone cameras by 2030.
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.
Funny enough it's the OS and manufacturer I don't trust with my phone, with my PC I trust them a lot more as they're much more open and I can choose the OS.
You know what's stronger than a manufacturer's promise? 2cm of double-ply electrical tape.
For reference, Samsung screenshots everything shown on their televisions at regular intervals and sends these to their South Korean data centres for advertisers to use. It's called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), which any sane country should be outright banning under international espionage laws.
I give no screen a network connection.
Screens are for playing what I send to them. Not for running their own apps or network traffic.
I would pay more for dumb screen TVs.
Absolutely. No monitor of any kind should be connected to the Internet.
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.
For the main camera there are cases with sliding covers for many phone models. Marketed for protecting the lens from scratches, but quite effective for privacy as well
For the front camera that's a lot more difficult. You could probably modify one of those flexible screen protectors to black out the camera, but it'd be very inconvenient to take off.
Maybe there is some niche android phone that offers physical shutters, similar to the ones on Lenovo laptop webcams
It's harder to tape it when it's now a small island in the screen.
Laser engravers. Blu-ray drive laser modules are dime a dozen and are plenty powerful.
Can I get a pair of camera glasses that uses AI to identify other camera glasses, and controls a moveable laser to blast the cameras on the other glasses?
You'll need much better high-speed cameras than on existing glasses, and a really good beam steering mechanism coupled with much better laser than Blu-ray diodes. It'll be heavier than most VR goggles and very finicky. I don't even know which ones of fixed camera with a dual polygonal or standard 2-axis galvos or prism based PTZ with the camera doing classical lock-on and trained laser shooting from the opposite side of the camera. It's a >$50k project at benchtop static PoC level.
Put aside everything unethical and unworkable about it. Probably cheaper to lobby for a think-about-kids camera ban for products weighing less than 250g or contains transparent window apparatus that may or may not be curved in diameters larger than 10mm for fire risks or something.
I hope that was sarcasm.
That's a bad idea on so many levels.
Yes; I don't want to accidentally blind people.
Has the submission title just been editorialized? I swear I’ve seen it mentioning data collection before, now it’s just bland.
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”".
We just updated the title to “Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns”.
The workers behind Meta’s smart glasses can see everything (svd.se) 700 points by sandbach 5 hours ago | flag | hide | 402 comments
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?
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
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.
What did you expect from Y Combinator? Stop being naive and delulu.
lmao what's going on? hn cucking to meta pressure?
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.
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.
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?
or
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.
Look, they’re only keeping those videos to train their model to identify CSAM and definitely not accidentally generate it.
That seems a bit like accusing the post office of letting you send and receive banned books?
Not so much the post office. More like inventory of a book dealer.
Yes we accuse sociopathic tech bros of knowingly making the world a worse place because they need to buy a Lamborghini.
No wonder Zuckerberg is so popular with the Epstein class
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.
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.
> It's sad that the gap between a "glasshole" and meta glasses is just a branded frame.
You might say they reframed the issue.
> 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.
I am forever reminded of this stupid cartoon: https://youtu.be/6PY8C1KmNwM?si=_WU_lstzp_5mFrxk
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.
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...
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.
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.
In that case, the data collected should be subject to strict privacy laws.
That's the only way this can be fixed. Socially shaming everyone isn't going to beat facebook. Laws banning them from doing evil things with the data will.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The best Robert Scoble was when he was advocating for NEC tablets (Windows XP Tablet PC Edition) on various forums in 2002 or 2003.
Not when he was showing off his google glass to teenaged high school girls and recording them then broadcasting audio and photos them on soundcloud?
https://soundcloud.com/scobleizer/why-google-glass-will-be-a...
>"So you want one, huh?" -Robert Scoble
Still on X, yelling about how amazing Elon Musk is.
There are no privacy concerns because there IS no privacy. /s
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.
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.
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
Have you seen them in the wild? They're notably chunky and have an obvious hole where the lens is. You might not notice it in passing but if someone's talking to you it's hard not to notice. I wonder how many of their owners realise how much they're affecting every interaction they have with another human.
Unlike google glass they don't look weird. Unless you know what to look for you will probably just think they are ray bans.
Maybe in a few generations. Right now they do in fact look weird.
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.
> Is anyone at meta going to be bald accountable?
They haven't yet. Don't see why now.
> 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.
Legal frameworks often struggle to keep pace with technology, leading to complex issues. In regions that prioritize privacy, finding the right balance between innovation and individual rights can be particularly difficult.
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.
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.
Lol! The no way round it defense. I'll have to remember that.
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.
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.
[flagged]
"But at what cost"
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?
I think they're dumb but my wife loves them. The video quality is surprisingly good.
Hilarious that a post about collecting data is on a site that collects data