Meta has previously tried to assuage concerns by pointing to the fact that its glasses light up when recording audio or video. But the bug this week shows that even with this light activated, it\u2019s possible for the smart glasses to record inadvertently.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s brief statement does little to alleviate those worries. Meanwhile, the bug lends some credence to reports and trepidation that Ray-Ban Metas are creating recordings without subjects\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n
Fears brought to life<\/p>\n
Meta has been steadfast<\/a> in its push for gadgets that put microphones<\/a> and cameras in people\u2019s homes<\/a> and on their faces<\/a>, while battling fears that the devices could be used for nonconsensual recordings.<\/p>\n Contractors for Sama<\/a>, a data annotation company headquartered in Kenya, say they have viewed footage that was shot by Ray-Ban Metas, seemingly without the wearer or other people in the video knowing. A report by Swedish journalists earlier this year interviewed over 30 Sama workers and pointed to a \u201cstream of privacy-sensitive data that is fed straight into the tech giant\u2019s systems,\u201d per a machine translation, resulting in workers viewing private activities, like a glasses owner\u2019s partner coming out of a bathroom naked.<\/p>\n \u201cMeta has that type of content in its databases. People can record themselves in the wrong way and not even know what they are recording,\u201d the report quoted an anonymous Sama employee as saying.<\/p>\n In the US, the report led to a lawsuit seeking class action certification [PDF<\/a>] and an investigation from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>.<\/p>\n In August, Meta updated its smart glasses<\/a> so that they won\u2019t record if the glasses\u2019 indicator light is covered up. Some potential privacy violations using Ray-Ban Metas, however, hinge on a bad human actor.<\/a> But this most recent glitch, as well as the reports from the Sama workers, highlights the possibility for well-meaning users to inadvertently record stuff, too.<\/p>\n The privacy shortcomings of Ray-Ban Meta and other smart glasses have raised concerns<\/a> about being clandestinely recorded in public<\/a> and about the creation of\u00a0apps for detecting the smart glasses<\/a>. The privacy concerns have also led to proposed legislation, including in Norway, which is considering a temporary ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n Glasses like Ray-Ban Metas have the potential to intentionally or unintentionally violate people\u2019s privacy, whether through technical problems, sharing data without user consent, or poor design. Without further constraints, one of the biggest drawbacks to devices like Ray-Ban Metas will continue to be the fear of nonconsensual recording, a fear that this week\u2019s bug turned into a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta has previously tried to assuage concerns by pointing to the fact that its glasses light up when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-935742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}