It’s becoming somewhat of a running gag that any device or object will be made ‘smart’ these days, whether it’s a phone, TV, refrigerator, home thermostat, headphones or gla…
Smart glasses also raise many privacy concerns, as their cameras and microphones may be recording at any given time, which can be unnerving to people.
This reaction has always struck me as, at best ill-informed. If I search for spy camera glasses on Amazon, I can find much cheaper and less obvious options to record people without their knowledge. If glasses are getting extra scrutiny lately, maybe I’d be better off with a spy camera pen or something like this which can be disguised as part of a button-up shirt.
Of course actually using any of these to record people without their consent in most situations makes you an asshole, but that capability already existed and is continually expanding.
sure, but there the spying is the purpose, whereas with the glasses it’s incidental.
you don’t buy such gadgets if you don’t intend to spy, but people would buy meta glasses for other reason, and meta being able to spy on you is just a side-effect. Plus it’ a matter of scale, this has the potential of being much more prominent than some spy camera.
“Incidental”—this is Meta we’re talking about, and you can exchange them with any other technofacist and it still applies.
But I wholly agree with you that they know exactly what they are doing. This is how they get people to “participate” in their platforms and algorithms, whether they want to or not.
Meta spying is its own issue, and I think a very legitimate concern.
I’m understanding the concern the article mentions about smart glasses in general (independent of who manufactures them) being the user recording people. That’s what people seemed to be upset about when Google Glass launched as well.
I think the reason this is a problem with smart glasses but not with spy pens is that smart glasses are more accessible. I mean, you don’t just keep a spy pen on your person, or even buy one, in case it will be useful, right? but the smart glasses are just there, on your head. and why not take a few stealthy photos if I can just click and its one, nobody knowing? or even just that you take a photo of something, but there are others in the field of view who have no idea.
and not just with Meta. I don’t think other companies either can be trusted with tech like this. Certainly not in this age.
This reaction has always struck me as, at best ill-informed. If I search for spy camera glasses on Amazon, I can find much cheaper and less obvious options to record people without their knowledge. If glasses are getting extra scrutiny lately, maybe I’d be better off with a spy camera pen or something like this which can be disguised as part of a button-up shirt.
Of course actually using any of these to record people without their consent in most situations makes you an asshole, but that capability already existed and is continually expanding.
sure, but there the spying is the purpose, whereas with the glasses it’s incidental.
you don’t buy such gadgets if you don’t intend to spy, but people would buy meta glasses for other reason, and meta being able to spy on you is just a side-effect. Plus it’ a matter of scale, this has the potential of being much more prominent than some spy camera.
“Incidental”—this is Meta we’re talking about, and you can exchange them with any other technofacist and it still applies.
But I wholly agree with you that they know exactly what they are doing. This is how they get people to “participate” in their platforms and algorithms, whether they want to or not.
Meta spying is its own issue, and I think a very legitimate concern.
I’m understanding the concern the article mentions about smart glasses in general (independent of who manufactures them) being the user recording people. That’s what people seemed to be upset about when Google Glass launched as well.
I think the reason this is a problem with smart glasses but not with spy pens is that smart glasses are more accessible. I mean, you don’t just keep a spy pen on your person, or even buy one, in case it will be useful, right? but the smart glasses are just there, on your head. and why not take a few stealthy photos if I can just click and its one, nobody knowing? or even just that you take a photo of something, but there are others in the field of view who have no idea.
and not just with Meta. I don’t think other companies either can be trusted with tech like this. Certainly not in this age.
Not spying other people. Spying the owner of the glasses.
This was never the concern that caused people to call users “glassholes”.
If the last fifteen years have shown us anything it’s that very few people care.