Did Someone Wearing Meta Glasses Film You Today? Are You Sure? ⇥ theguardian.com

Maggie Harrison Dupré, in a Guardian article about Meta Glasses:

[…] Smartglasses bring the functionality of smartphones, cameras included, into every moment. Several people I spoke to said that even when the LED is functioning as intended it can be subtle and difficult to spot from far away, especially if you aren’t aware of how smartglasses work. Others shared that they sought out the glasses to capture more “natural” footage of those around them, explicitly because people act differently when they know they’re being recorded. As Meta themselves put in their advertising materials: “Record life as you live it – every detail, every angle.”

[…]

Meta refuted to the Guardian that the main purpose of the glasses is to make unnoticeable recordings. […]

Actually, it is the whole point of these things. What Meta probably intends to say is that the main purpose of these glasses is not to make creepy and gross unnoticeable recordings. However, they are absolutely intended to be a less-obvious way of shooting photos and videos “as you live it”, if you believe Meta’s own marketing. Sure, maybe someone recorded you today with their smartphone and you did not notice, but it is very obviously an effect of hidden camera glasses like these — and, perhaps, headphones — that such recordings become dramatically more covert.

Harrison Dupré quotes Ryan Clarkson in this article, an attorney who filed a sprawling class action lawsuit (PDF) against Meta alleging serious privacy violations. But virtually all its claims refer to the blockbuster article published by Svenska Dagbladet in March revealing that contractors in Nairobi were reviewing recordings without the explicit knowledge or consent of users — undeniably, in my view, a violation of their privacy and expectations. But so many of the examples in this article and others are entirely about the simple fact that images or videos were captured.