Two US Senators Raise Privacy Concerns About Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' (gizmodo.com) 37
Meta's smart glasses face new questions from two U.S. Senators, reports Gizmodo.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey "are requesting that Meta provide more information before Thanksgiving on whether it conducted detailed human rights due diligence and safety testing on the product before releasing it," reports Gizmodo. The Senators also requested information from Meta about " how it evaluated the privacy risks posed by the glasses, and what kinds of safeguards are currently in place."
"Although Meta identified risks to bystander privacy and vulnerable populations before launching its glasses in 2021, it nevertheless launched a product tailor-made for invading the privacy of its users and bystanders," [the senators wrote in a letter Thursday...] The glasses have also been spotted on ICE agents during raids, and have raised potential surveillance concerns. The surveillance fears were even reportedly raised by the New York Police Department's counterterrorism unit in a memo issued earlier this year....
"Meta's own disclosures confirm that imagery processed through its glasses' visual AI features may be retained and used to train AI systems, including with the assistance of human reviewers," the senators' letter states, calling the practice an invasion of privacy. "Retaining that material for AI development, thereby extending the period during which it can be accessed, disclosed, or misused, exploits people's highly sensitive information for Meta's commercial benefit."
"Meta's own disclosures confirm that imagery processed through its glasses' visual AI features may be retained and used to train AI systems, including with the assistance of human reviewers," the senators' letter states, calling the practice an invasion of privacy. "Retaining that material for AI development, thereby extending the period during which it can be accessed, disclosed, or misused, exploits people's highly sensitive information for Meta's commercial benefit."
Yeah, right... (Score:2)
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It's great Wyden and Markey are taking an interest in this, but the issue is far bigger than one major brand of spy-glasses; there are dozens of brands of similar glasses that don't even pretend to try to protect privacy; and moving beyond that specific form factor, there are thousands of styles of spy c
Re: Yeah, right... (Score:1)
Illegal doesnâ(TM)t mean I donâ(TM)t have the right to record, tho. Government doesnâ(TM)t give rights.
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We have Legal Aid in the UK, https://www.gov.uk/legal-aid/a... [www.gov.uk]. Whether you qualify depends on your financial circumstances.
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Government doesnâ(TM)t give rights.
They do in Germany, You have many rights.
If someone has to give you a right, it is not a right. It is an entitlement.
Governments may respect rights or they may violate rights, but rights are inherent to you.
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Government doesnâ(TM)t give rights.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say...
Did it die of natural causes, or was it MURDER?! (Score:2)
Of course the corporations aren't liable for whatever problems they cause. Didn't you read the EULA/ToS/<whatever> when you signed up? No excuse that you thought it was longer and more boring than War and Peace .
What we have here is a compatibility failure. The corporations have the singular motivation of increasing profit. No profit is big enough. No limit, and therefore any concern about harms is a limit on profits that must be circumvented. The new business plan is to create goods and services tha
Someone explain this to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's nice to go after Meta, we all hate them anyway, aren't we missing out on all the AI training being done on all the media created on cellphones that automatically backup to the cloud?
Seems like the same thing to me, since there's no data protection laws in this country anyway. Anything sent to the cloud is going to be sold as data and it's perfectly legal.
These two senator's, if they cared about privacy, would be pushing national consumer data protection laws.
So by all means, let's fuck with Meta, but let's not pretend it's just them. It's all of them.
"Pervert Glasses" accurate, but... (Score:3, Funny)
I prefer to call those glasses the same way I call Meta[stasize] itself: "Privacy Raping".
The tech itself may have... (Score:2)
...legitimate uses in science, engineering, education and general curiosity
Marketing to the general public is troublesome
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...legitimate uses in science, engineering, education and general curiosity Marketing to the general public is troublesome
As I recall, Google Glass Enterprise Editions were used in industry to some success.
Fashionable Outrage. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Put the glasses on an ICE agents face, and it's suddenly a product tailor-made for destroying citizen privacy to be demonized on sight.
Put the glasses on a CIS-males face, and he suddenly turns into a glasshole wearing a pervert prescription worthy of a restraining order.
Put the glasses on a womans face, and they're lauded and defended as pervert detectors (AI enhanced instant background checks). Fashionable digital defense-wear worthy of 27 styles and 457 colorways.
Put the glasses on a Kardashian face,
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Put the glasses on a Kardashian face,
Yeah. I really hate the way Kim follows me around with those spy cameras.
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Put the glasses on a Kardashian face,
Yeah. I really hate the way Kim follows me around with those spy cameras.
No. You really hate that holiday sales of Kardashian spyware will enable plenty of other women in society to follow you around. For fashions sake. Privacy be damned.
Double Standard, is on the cover of Vogue here. Not exactly subtle.
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Everything looks hypocritical when you invent positions out of whole cloth. I can't even fathom the Kardashian thing, you think opponents of pervert glasses love the Kardashian and love it when they wear pervert glasses? I mean, I can understand you inventing some position an "SJW" would have about a woman wearing one despite nobody ever saying that ever, but Kardashians?
Have you ever interacted with real people geekmux?
Testing (Score:2)
Where might I sign up to participate in such Pervert Glasses testing? Just supply me with the spectacles and a suitable supply of perversion to observe and I'll happily provide frequent reports.
Wyden (Score:2)
Shout out to Ron Wyden (one of my senators). EFF kinda guy: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
Re:Wyden (Score:4, Insightful)
He is also my Senator, but I'd really like to know why it takes them 5 years to start asking these questions.
It's good they are finally being asked, but seriously - this shit launched in 2021, and here we are in the waning days of 2026 and their finally getting around to asking questions about it.
It's not like they have to comb through all this themselves - they have staffers who can ask questions, brief, and take direction from the senator to advance understanding of the issues and develop a regulatory strategy.
We will never be free of this privacy rape until the legislative branch learns to keep up with the privacy rapists at least a little. 5 years of rape before starting to ask questions is ridiculous.
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s/their/they're/
Speaking of things that are taking way too fucking long, why does Slashdot STILL not allow an edit button for a few minutes after a post was made for "whoops" moments?
Why are they pervy? (Score:3, Insightful)
How are they pervert glasses? I'm just trying to understand because camera glasses have been around for a very long time. Practically every cell phone has a camera and people are constantly recording in public, and in many cases they record in restrooms too.
So I'm just curious, what feature stands out that makes them pervert glasses? I genuinely know nothing about them and this Q is not rhetorical. I googled but don't really see any special features.
Re:Why are they pervy? (Score:4, Informative)
I think "pervy" is hyperbole to illustrate the point that some deviant could easily be covertly capturing video of kids in the park, young women, etc. without any permission or notification to the subjects of recording. Let's not focus too strictly on the word, and instead think of the overall concept.
It's rather more obvious if you're being recorded if someone is holding a phone camera pointed in your direction.
With these, all they have to do is be looking generally at you, and if you are some distance away, you won't be able to tell the difference between these and other corrective lenses.
Also - if someone is recording you with a phone, the phone operator knows they are recording you. Do you know if these things aren't recording all the fucking time and sending shit to the cloud without the owner knowing it's happening as a normal course of business? My phone can't do that when it's in my pocket, but these sure as hell could if they're on your face with reasonable lighting levels.
Simple to solve with a regulation (Score:2, Insightful)
They can only record what a person already sees, so the harm is... What exactly? It's reproducing the video anywhere else, like online. So the solution to that is to criminalize sharing videos and pictures recorded by these glasses, without the participants' consent. You can replay them for personal use, which is the same thing your own memory can already do.
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Now let's do this with audio:
They can only record what a person already hears, so the harm is... What exactly? It's reproducing the audio anywhere else, like online.
When we do that, you are now violating the law in any state that has two-party consent.
Get it yet?
Re: Simple to solve with a regulation (Score:3)
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It's interesting, you change the problem from "sharing online" to personal use. If sharing online isn't a problem, please share your credit card details: You've already seen it, so I can see it too, right? The other problem you omit is mentioned in every second post under this article: Google making a copy of your videos. With Gen. XYZ making 6,000 videos of last week's baseball game, it's easy to think that infrastructure stealing your data, isn't a problem. So, that's another reason for you to share
Body cams (Score:2)
many a moon ago (Score:2)
Many a moon ago, some magazines in their back pages advertised glasses that let you see through clothes.