Meta’s AI glasses are gaining a reputation as creepy technology. The company hopes to change that opinion by announcing an update that will disable the camera if the LED light that indicates the glasses are recording is tampered with.
The move appears to be a concession to consumer sentiment that glasses are not just a fun, fashionable accessory that Kylie Jenner happily promotes, but have serious implications for consumer privacy: Glasses can be misused as surveillance devices.
But while Meta is touting new protections this week, it’s also promoting products and features that require users to surrender more of their privacy to the company.
Whether it’s training AI on images, using personal content to enable AI capabilities unless you opt out, or exploring ways to continuously record or use biometric facial recognition, Meta’s vision for the future always seems to rely on collecting more personal data.
In a blog post about the new camera’s safety features, the company praises itself by saying, “No other type of camera has achieved this, and we’re proud to be leading the industry’s efforts.” But Mehta also acknowledged that this step was necessary because some people were covering their LED lights with tape, which had already forced Mehta to adapt technology to disable recording if the LEDs were cut off.
Meta’s announcement explains that the same AI glasses creep has decided to make “advanced efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED.”
In other words, Mehta has confirmed that some people who use AI glasses have a hidden agenda, a desire to record situations or people (often women) without their consent.
Nevertheless, the company is testing a prototype of AI glasses that “continuously collect audio while taking pictures every few seconds,” sources recently told the Financial Times.
Meta’s blog post about the glasses feature attempts to allay people’s concerns about device privacy by answering questions like, “Who can see the photos and videos I take while wearing my glasses?” Meta responds by promising, “Only you, unless you choose to share them.” However, Meta’s privacy policy explains that any images you share with Meta AI can be used to train the AI.
Meanwhile, the company is facing multiple investigations and lawsuits over privacy violations with its Meta AI glasses. One lawsuit comes after Meta canceled a contract with the outsourced tech company after some Kenyan employees claimed they had to watch graphic content such as sex, nudity, and people using the toilet while training Meta’s AI using videos of people’s Meta AI glasses.
These are not the first privacy and security scrapings by Meta.
Arguably, Meta’s privacy reputation has been tarnished over the years by numerous leaks and lawsuit losses regarding the lack of child safety measures and desire to grow up at all costs. There are even books by whistleblowers documenting its alleged abuses, not to mention previous major privacy disasters such as the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, Meta now claims on its privacy progress update page: “Since 2019, we have made significant investments in people, products, and technology to continue evolving our rigorous privacy program.”
Still, the company is moving forward with an idea that many would consider an invasion of privacy. Case in point: On the same day it announced new safety measures for Meta glasses, Meta AI shared that anyone can use public Instagram photos to create AI images unless they opt out.
They also built the ability to use Meta AI on images in their camera roll that they had never shared, and implemented such poor privacy controls in the Meta AI app that users were effectively exposing themselves by revealing embarrassing search results.
This is the same company that Apple has refused to partner with over privacy concerns, and plans to record employee keystrokes to train its AI and sell targeted ads based on AI chat data.
So while LED protection on AI glasses may be a necessary feature, it’s clear that consumers still have many reasons to remain distrustful of how social media uses images and data, especially in broader AI plans.
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