Smart glasses equipped with cameras, microphones, and AI are a creeping privacy and security nightmare, prompting backlash.

And rightfully so.

  • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net
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    4 days ago

    Well, yeah. You wouldn’t allow someone to film at a swimming pool with their phone. Stealth cameras of any form are immediately far more suspicious.

  • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    Anyone wearing those are absolutely being a perv and playing dumb about it. Apple will probably come out with those next, and push them just like they have air pods so that they’ll have a camera to go with their always active mics! Fucking drives me nuts when people act like they’re so technologically savvy by using siri to call people on the phone.

    • Canaconda@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      I’ve had to inform all my boomer/genx peeps that have one about how they send video footage back even when you aren’t recording. Instances like people just putting the glasses down on their bedside table and some meta contractor ends up seeing your wife get dressed after a shower.

      • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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        5 days ago

        My beef, what about underage users?? Let’s say a high schooler gets frisky with his gf?? A kid at my kid’s school was bragging about using his glasses for school work, and they were joking about taking a poop, etc then a kid joked about walking into the girls bathroom with them on… Idk man, so many problems with them!!

        • Amdouni@lemmy.ml
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          4 days ago

          One of the police officers was using it when I was in highschool, even in the restrooms I think.

    • jaaake@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I hate how these are being used, both by Meta and by creeps.

      I bought a pair of them after trying out a friends (back before they had any AI capability, and had not yet been hacked to dox people) because they’re really good speakers and the exact same style of sunglasses that I’ve worn for 30 years. The first thing I did was disable the always on mic (which required me to log in to meta, which I had to make an account for using a burner email). The second thing I did was purchase lens covers so people could be confident I wasn’t recording them. Finding covers that worked for the lens and not just the light was a pain because I apparently everyone is doing the opposite thing with these that I wanted to. Also, I wanted to make sure that the lens cover could be removed because I wanted to be able to retain the ability to make hands free first person videos (in places without other people). It’s also super helpful for making footage of things that require you to use both hands.

      I hope any future smart glasses (because there’s no way this product is going to go away) don’t just indicate when they are recording, but they make it obvious to others when they’re in a state that they cannot be recording (video at least). A built in lens cover solves that. If I was to buy another pair of smart glasses (which I currently have no plans to do), it would be an absolute requirement that people around me understand that I’m not making video of them, doxxing them, or in any way using an image of them.

      • YawningNostalgia@thelemmy.club
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        5 days ago

        There are a ton of great applications for this and other cameras. If you’re a woman walking around by herself it could help prove that an assault took place, for example. The problem is that the people buying these things are the freaks, not the innocents.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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          5 days ago

          “Invading people’s privacy by recording them without their knowledge or consent is only wrong when a man does it.”

          • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Nobody has a right to not be recorded in public spaces. Whether that’s a good thing or not I’ll leave to you, but nobody in public should ever assume they have any kind of privacy while in public.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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              4 days ago

              Okay, so you’re pro-smartglasses and forfeit your right to complain about men being “creeps” in public. “Nobody has a right to not be recording in public spaces” “Nobody in public should ever assume they have any kind of privacy while in public.” Your words, not mine. Now let’s see you squirm to try to explain why actually that’s not the case whenever it’s convenient for you to contradict yourself.

          • YawningNostalgia@thelemmy.club
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            4 days ago

            So obviously beside the point…can you not turn this into Reddit please? I don’t own meta glasses or film anyone in public without them being aware. The only situation in which I would, which I’ve already said I don’t, is if I’m alone and concerned for my safety.
            And yeah men are more likely to use them for perverted reasons.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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              4 days ago

              So are we gonna normalize them and say they’re okay, or are we gonna say they’re an invasion of everyone’s privacy and shouldn’t be acceptable?

              Because you can’t have it both ways unless you want to call yourself a hypocrite. This isn’t reddit, but that doesn’t mean you can flaunt your logical inconsistencies and expect no one to call you out on it.

              By the way, I’m firmly in the camp of “these are an invasion of everyone’s privacy,” but if you wanna argue “well actually they have some uses” then I don’t want to hear you crying later when someone uses it to invade your privacy. Don’t be so short-sighted.

              It’s not beside the point at all.

    • Da Cap’n@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      Fucking drives me nuts when people act like they’re so technologically savvy by using siri to call people on the phone.

      Years ago, I worked with this guy who would purposely leave his office and pace the halls only to stop in my doorway to say, “hey siri, call _____” with a huge fucking smirk on his face!

      He was so annoying.

    • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      What the fuck do AirPods have to do with this? Any wireless earbuds are awesome. I can start playing a video on my phone, and it connects. I take a call on my laptop, and it jumps there immediately. I don’t have to fiddle with a cord that constantly gets tangled and then eventually just stops working because it’s been bent in the same spot for 2 years. I can connect my AirPods and my wife’s AirPods to my phone on a plane, and we watch a video together, and I didn’t have to remember to bring my headphone splitter. Wireless earbuds are not the same as a mass surveillance device.

      • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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        5 days ago

        Dude, you to offense like nobody’s business… I’m not dissing on wireless ear buds, I’m specifically calling out Apple brand for the “always active mic” which is a privacy concern in itself. And 2. Its the popularization of trying to make it a normalized thing that everybody wears. It wasn’t socially acceptable to otherwise wear them around all the time, but now it’s seen as a “status symbol” so now is OK to do…

        Go ahead and keep spending exorbitant money on Apple products, they’ve clearly wrangled you into their ecosystem and I somehow hit a nerve lmao. I get the point to their functionality, too, you don’t have to explain magical wireless technology to me, it sounds like you’re trying to justify something to yourself.

        The pair/brand I own don’t have an always-on mic, they don’t send data to the Mothership, and they probably sound a whole HELL of a lot better than yours trash apple product 😂

        Cracks me up though, you’re spending $600+ on 2 SETS of airpods for a (2-4hour?) flight vs a <$10 headphone splitter… Who you convincing they’re great, yourself??

        ANYWAY back to my point, I can see Apple trying to release their own version of these glasses and trying to normalize them, and poor fucking saps like you will gobble it up and continue trying to justify it all the same… I bet you have a pair of their $3500 augmented reality headset too…

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          3 days ago

          Listening for a phrase is not the same as always recording.

        • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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          4 days ago

          Calling me offensive because I used “fuck”? It’s called poe’s law. Don’t assume people are mad just because of words. I was just trying to figure out what the heck you meant with AirPods. The always on is for the transparency mode. It’s all on device and not even sent to the phone. AirPods are t even that expensive and we use them for more than just a flight. We have jobs where we listen to music and work with our hands so we don’t get stuck in our cords.

          But you’re the one being very extra and aggressive now, even going into name calling, which I never did. Take a step back. This is Lemmy, not Reddit or Xitter. Take a chill pill and engage in the conversation instead of spewing vitriol.

          Also, why would I have the AR headset? There’s no use for it. You can’t even play games! 😂

          • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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            4 days ago

            It read angry and defensive. You made a lot of cases for why they’re “so great” like you had to convince more than me. Anyway, I know how they work, I’m a pretty big tech nerd myself, but at no point would I ever use their tech. This is a privacy group, so you can’t defend a company that’s known for spying on their customers. Apple might push themselves as privacy-focused, but maybe they just keep other “bad actors” from your data while they happily gather as much as they want and share sell to 3rd party partners.

            • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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              4 days ago

              I’m going to need a source on Apple selling your data. Just one source is fine. They do push themselves as security focused, and they are very overpriced for what you’re getting. But I haven’t seen any news or sources of them actually breaking any of their privacy promises. They did give anonymized audio data to a third party contractor to quality grade their “hey siri” detection but this is something the user has to opt into. They have a better track record than Google, and back in 2009 when I was getting into smart phones, those were the only two options.

              • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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                4 days ago

                Totally understandable, and yes, Apple does have a better track record with consumer/customer data. They’ve pushed really hard to hang on directly to user data since they have their own ad platform now. They gather the same types of data that Google does, and Google goes to extra lengths to get even more. I get that.

                I think it’s the verbiage I don’t trust in some of their privacy policy:

                "## Apple’s Sharing of Personal Data

                Apple may share personal data with Apple-affiliated companies, service providers who act on our behalf, our partners, developers, and publishers, or others at your direction. Further, Apple does not share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes."

                So data IS shared, but not allowed to be used for marketing purposes, so it sounds great at face value, but they leave out what’s allowed… Again Apple has their own ad platform.

                Cookies and Other Technologies

                Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as web beacons.

                While they allow you to disable cookies, there’s still other tech at work… It later says:

                In addition to cookies, Apple uses other technologies that help us achieve similar objectives.

                I just don’t fully trust it. Apple has A VERY large legal team and they certainly have better wording to sound super great!! They do offer better privacy out of the box and settings to lock down or opt out, yes, 100%. But they do admit several times data is shared, be it personal or non-personal (anonymized).

                They also allow Google to still remain the default search engine (for $12b) which then for millions of people all that data is gathered… And you KNOW Apple gets a slice of that data… So while Apple appears to take the high road on this one, I think they’re far from innocent. They’re allowing other companies to do the legwork for your data while maintaining its “pure” view. inserts Clever_girl.gif

                Anyway, sources: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

                https://fossbytes.com/apple-data-collection-explained/

                https://www.wired.com/story/apple-privacy-data-collection/

                The gist: data is gathered, data is shared, days is allowed to be stored with 3rd parties “until they’re done with it” just don’t use it for marketing, that’s our space, etc… They’ve come a long way, but far from innocent!

  • br3d@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The thing is, I’d love glasses with a private display. Imagine walking around a strange city with maps displayed in your vision, or giving a talk and having your notes in your view. Specs with screens! But why would I also want a camera? If I wanted to photograph something I can use my phone - perhaps using my SpecScreen as a viewfinder, sure, but the camera can happily live in my phone still. Basically, I’m worried the perverts are going to ruin glasses with HUDs for the rest of us. There must be dozens of us non-perverts, surely?

    • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      There are plenty of legit use cases for a camera. Traveling in a foreign place the glasses could overlay text in your language. Looking at a transit table it could highlight the correct route and time. And anytime you meet someone new it could store their name and face in a database.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        does that utility outweigh the privacy of the public though?

        Shame it’s meta because the answer will always skew towards invading privacy and shitting on the others.

        • socsa@piefed.social
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          5 days ago

          Exactly. Navigating a city isn’t really that hard from a phone, even if you don’t speak the language. You don’t need to be staring at it the whole time if you learn how to just orient yourself on a street grid. Having a HUD for that purpose might be a neat trick, but not at the expense of being constantly recorded.

        • JayGray91🐉🍕@piefed.social
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          5 days ago

          Maybe antlion already replied to you (because I see two replies below your post but one is removed/deleted) but I didn’t take antlion’s comment as if it outweigh the privacy invasion.

          Though, it is a shame that all the cool tech and legit use cases are for nothing because it’s packaged with invasive spyware.

        • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 days ago

          There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words. I’m less concerned about a camera on somebodies face, and more concerned about the legality of doing facial recognition, and identifying and tracking of people without their explicit consent. See one is about the personal utility of camera-interfaced computing, and the other is corporate espionage. But unless lawmakers can draw that line and enforce it, we will probably just end up with spyware.

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words.

            creep. so quick to carve out the rules by which you and other can invade the privacy of individuals. you know there’s a difference between general photography and this. you know this. I don’t have to explain it to you.

            you’re just a creep who wants to creep on women and kids.

            • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              4 days ago

              You caught me. I go around with my wife and daughter so I can get away with being a creep. Don’t tell the moms on the playground.

              • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                if you cared about them you’d care about this. the fact that you immediately jump to legal definitions created in the age of film is absurd; there was never a minox that had 4k video, but that’s what we’re looking at these days. and you don’t seem to care that there’s a booming market to disable the recording lights.

                If I were your wife and daughter I’d be creeped out by you.

                • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  4 days ago

                  You don’t know shit about me bro. Creepers gonna creep. If they want to hide a camera they can do it in lapel pin or something. Being paranoid about it won’t stop anything. Making legislation to require a recording light will just de-tune the public’s vigilance when they don’t see a light. It won’t stop people from taking discrete photos. If you’re scared of having your photo taken, stay inside. There are a huge number of automatic license plate cameras owned by corporations logging your plates. They may also be capturing and analyzing your face. That is a lot more concerning to me than some dude wearing glasses.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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        5 days ago

        And anytime you meet someone new it could store their name and face in a database.

        Enough of this dystopian bullshit! Or was that satire?

        • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          It was a bit self-satirical. But it would be really helpful for me, if it existed. I’m not about to buy a face camera but I can imagine some people in sales might like such a feature.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            4 days ago

            If someone in sales is logging and recording my interactions with them, storing my name and face in a database and feeding it into facial recognition software, then I’m not buying anything from them.

      • Meissnerscorpsucle@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        one of the leaked “test” features that everyone hated was the facial recognition…and i get it. lot’s of opertunity for abuse. Shame though as that would be SO usfull to those with prosopagnosia or people like me who have an inability to remember names. It has hurt me profesionaly throughout my life. having the name and a few relivent facts about people pop up would just put me on the same playing field with those who can remember.

    • fizzle@quokk.au
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      5 days ago

      A while ago I would have agreed with this whole heartedly.

      Now I’m old and grumpy and everything seems like a can / should question where the “should” part is only satisfied if a really significant problem is solved, because the “can” part always requires a trade off that is rarely worth the cost.

    • Flames5123@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      How would a view like that work without a camera? It needs to see streets to display the map accurately since GOS could only be accurate within 5meters sometimes.

    • cyberfae@piefed.social
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      5 days ago

      Same. I even have a pair that I’m working on setting up as an accessibility device, but i worry that even with the camera looking thing taped, that it’s going to cause issues, especially since I’ll have a visible wire hooked up to a raspberry pi.

      EDIT: I forgot to specify that this is a viture luma and not the meta raybans, which i wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      You don’t have the cameras for taking picture but for augmented reality. For example maybe for your maps, it would place arrows in the right spots, or labels to identify landmarks on the landmarks themselves. It might highlight how far ahead the crosswalk is.

      Starting to get in the grey area but as someone horrible with names, I want it to tell me who I’m talking to

      • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Yeah, and won’t someone think about those poor contractors over at Meta? How else are they going to meet their AI circlejerk quota and rank all of that increasingly disturbing novel content if they can’t watch it through their glasses on their train rides to and from the office? Let’s have some compassion here folks!

        //end bit

        Ugh, just typing that made me nauseous

  • fubarx@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    With Google glasses, it was this strange contraption over one eye, so it was easy to shun or shame them into taking it off when at a conference or in a public bathroom (saw it happen many times).

    Problem with these are that the wearer can claim they’re prescription, even though there’s a camera and mic on them. And there are tons of stickers and covers you can buy online to hide the little recording indicator.

    There were also stories that these would soon autorecord/stream everything, and use AI to transcribe what was said and identify anyone encountered. Presumably so you could later go back and review something that you missed.

    What we have are essentially millions of portable Flock cameras with infinite storage and personal ID built in.

  • sen@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    I’d wear them if they didn’t have a camera - the idea of a little screen and the music/phone call capabilities baked into something I have to wear every waking moment anyways actually sounds really nice. I’d probably turn off the display after the novelty wore off, but the audio alone is still worth it to me.

  • Hackworth@piefed.ca
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    5 days ago

    Do you truly believe that those who have sold you your mechanical eyes have resisted the temptation to peek through them? Cameras are all around us, even within us! Your joys, your worries, your life… for them it is all mere spectacle. - Garry the Prophet

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    6 days ago

    I was calling them “stalker” glasses. Everything facebook (meta) does is about stalking humanity. Creepy, creepy weirdos.

  • [deleted]@piefed.world
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    5 days ago

    The prevalence of negative impacts is absolutely a reason to push back on these specific glasses.

    Due to aphantasia and ADHD, I would love to be able to manually record and store locally what I am seeing in a wide variety of situations. That guy I talked to about the thing? What was his name and what did he look like? All I remember is he had curly hair and he had a common name. Being able to play back the introduction would let me refresh myself to keep up with people who remember a large number of names and faces in a short period of time. If I do something like work on my PC being able to record as I go without needing to set up the phone on a stand and hope I don’t block it would be great.

    Yeah, the negatives outweigh the positives and fuck meta for using what could be a great assistance device to collect everything they interact with instead of it being a locally stored thing that decent people could use.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      this is the problem with great tech, it can be used for valid purposes like yours, or for nefarious purposes, and the maker doesn’t fuckin care.

      if this was a product made by a reputable company I’d say go for it, but considering their wretched history of invasive garbage, I’d hold out for a better take.

    • cyberfae@piefed.social
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      5 days ago

      I’m setting up a viture luma to do something like this as well as have a HUD like interface for task tracking, like you’d have in video games. That said I’m taping the camera looking thing and I’m just going to use my phone when I need to take pictures or video. I’m setting it up where I could just transfer needed data directly whenever possible to avoid needing to use my phone camera. Most likely if i do use photos, it will be more of a photo journal than recording everything I see. This is mostly to try to keep others comfort and privacy in mind even though it would be stored locally on a raspberry pi.

      • [deleted]@piefed.world
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        5 days ago

        Technically I could ask people if I could record them using my phone but it would be awkward to do so and worse for social interactions that my current methods of discreetly asking people who they are and hoping for a list of participants with photos.

        • cyberfae@piefed.social
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          5 days ago

          Right, though if you could get by with a single photo, you might be able to use a photo from their social media, and use a description when that isn’t available.