“Experts in Europe warn that these devices are used to record strangers without their consent, possibly breaching EU law.”
“A small LED light is designed to indicate when recording is taking place, but RTBF’s investigators found that tutorials explaining how to conceal the indicator are abundant and easily accessible online.”
Sometimes I have a hard time deciding who I despise more, parasite Mark Zuckerberg or its witless hosts who keep using its products—yes, Zuck’s pronoun is it. Ban Ray-Ban, for frick’s sake.
as intended.
… and water is wet?
A small LED light is designed to indicate when recording is taking place, but RTBF’s investigators found that tutorials explaining how to conceal the indicator are abundant and easily accessible online.
You need a tutorial to use a piece of electrical tape?
The users are peak idiots…
“Experts in Europe warn that these devices are used to record strangers without their consent, possibly breaching EU law.”
Isn’t this all public cameras?
And private smart phones.
Yes, in a way.
Privacy laws are a little complicated but not that bad.
In this case Europe sees filming in public, while concealing the fact, not legal.
Conversely, if you are filming and it is very clear that you are(ie a camera, film crew etc) and you are not singling out anyone who doesnt want to be recorded then it is perfectly legal to film in public.
Do you see how it works now and how these Ray-Ban glasses go against this?
Its legal to record in public as long as you respect the privacy of others. Of course they can always be a background figure if they are not focused on but making them the star of your production without consent makes it very illegal and immoral in my opinion.
Have a great day!
I work in the field, in Europe, and can confirm this is about right. There are also situations where you start needing permits to film, either because it’s private property or even public property if you start having to put down a lot of equipment and crew.
Recording camera in public sources are subject to the EU law. You can’t install then without authorization and their use is reglemented.
I don’t know if it’s there case in all the EU but for example in France people need to be informed by a sign of a camera is recording the area, they can’t record the entrance of private houses …
In the US installation of cameras is actually pretty similar, but it’s a property thing more than a privacy thing.
For instance, Flock made a deal with a local HOA to install cameras, but the fence lines for the houses are at the property line, so where they’re wanting to place the cameras is in the public right-of-way. So they need to request a license to encroach into public property with private improvements.
However, cameras on private property facing public property are perfectly legal. And any private space visible from public property also has no “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Private property in public view not having an expectation of privacy sounds insane, but prohibiting recording of publicly-visible property essentially bans almost all outdoor recording of any kind because some private property is probably going to be somewhere in the frame.
If I take a selfie in the break room of my office (2nd floor), the background will include bits of dozens of private properties through the window.
Except that these cameras easily go anywhere, they aren’t just outside on the street.
Spas? Pools? Gyms Locker rooms? Find a nice spot sitting on a bench near a women’s dressing room at the mall that peeks in a bit? Set your glasses at your side and record while you look ahead at your phone, not freaking anyone out. They’re pervert enablers just as much as Grok is a CSAM machine if you pay for it.
as much as Grok is a CSAM machine if you pay for it.
CSAM is Child Sexual Assault Media, and Grok is not providing that, it’s providing Child Pornography.
You are comparing making non-consensual material with real people to generating material with no real people (based off real media, though, but that’s an implication with everything AI-generated).
Also true for spy cameras. And they don’t have the disadvantage of needing to be attached to a person to work.
Thats already illegal we don’t need more laws for that, just enforcement.
I think the difference that most people overlook, is that she doesn’t know. It’s a “hidden” camera. If they were holding up a phone or dslr, people would know to get out of the shot if they didn’t want to be filmed. Plus, it’s Europe, they’re probably better about privacy.
100% correct.
Also, Quebec (not sure about anywhere else in the world) has the same kind of laws, so not just Europe.
Except the camera outside every shop and on every streetcorner, yeah!
Those aren’t looking up her skirt, down her shirt, at your crotch or seeing your plumber’s crack, just for that purpose.
Yes, and many of those are illegal as well. Many home cameras (as part of video doorbells) are pointed at public streets, and they are usually illegal as well.
How about dash cams?
Most countries don’t have laws against recording public areas though, and generally as long as it’s not for commercial use even the ones that do haven’t set a precedent against it. The problem is when people are being recorded in compromising situations and in those cases it’s usually illegal.
I see what you’re driving at, but CCTV cameras are recording 24/7 on the offchance that the footage is needed, just in case, by a body who is often regulated and monitored. Whereas the concern with the glasses is that they are operated by an otherwise anonymous individual and the recording is more likely to be targeted rather than a broadly cast net.
The very reason the first camera phones had to be re-engineered to add mandatory shutter sounds to them.
I think the mandatory shutter sound is a Japan-only thing.
The very reason the first camera phones had to be re-engineered to add mandatory shutter sounds to them.
What?!?
Think about what you are saying for the love of all existence.
Volume buttons have always existed on cell phones. Your statement makes no sense.
Have a good day.
Cell phones in Japan must have an audible shutter sound. Pretty sure turning down the volume isn’t enough to silence it.
I’m being filmed without my consent by corporations everywhere I go
Yes but they have the right
In Europe, they often don’t. Enforcement is difficult though.
Yeah, unwritten laws are a silly idea.
Thank goodness they wrote in down then.
If the company puts up a sign notifying that there are cameras on the premises then under Article 6.1(f) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/ it is allowed due to “legitimate interest” in deterring crime, securing premises, promoting general safety. This could be argued in a court that it fails the balancing test and that they could and should use more narrow means of collection but the way the courts have ruled I don’t think you’d win that case. Although to be fair the EU doesn’t use common law or case law for decisions so it could be up to the particular judge.
Going back to the article though, if a person with the glasses is filming for “purely personal or household activity,” the entire GDPR is exempt under Article 2(2)© https://gdpr-info.eu/art-2-gdpr/
GDPR regulates the data and the processing, not the act of filming or the expectation of privacy for an exempt usage. If they decide to sell this on a creeper site that is different but I wouldn’t look to GDPR to be the primary legal framework for this being explicitly illegal. The actions under original article would more directly be a violation of multiple other national laws like Germany’s “KunstURHG” and France’s “Droit à l’image”
Oh. So somebody in power is going to do something about it. I’m glad.
Sie haben mich ins Gesicht gefilmt!
Who could have seen this coming? Who?
The world has gone to shit because capitalism created a world where Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams come true.
If only people had said “no thanks, I’m good” when Fakebook rolled out. Of course something else equally as shitty would have probably taken its place.
If only people would just stop fucking using it. It’s still a choice to use it.
I quit facebook about 15 years ago. I still have people trying to share facebook links with me or suggesting I make a fake account for whatever bullshit reason they think I need one. Even reasonable and well-educated people in my life don’t seem to understand the purpose of not having facebook is not having fucking facebook.
People are stupid but a person is smart.
One day all this “tech” bullshit will be gone and people will remember what it was like to have a certain level of privacy again.
But you know, back then it was “supposed” to about making connections with friends and family. Although the true original were just to meet college aged chicks
it was to rate college aged chicks.
Hindsight is 20/20 but only few, if any, expected how big of a giant piece of shit Facebook will become and especially its founder. Most people thought it is just another fad, and expected it will go the way of most other social media sites at the time such as Friendster, Bebo and MySpace.
Zuck was always a giant piece of shit. On discussing the information its first users’ willingness to give personal details to The Face Book back at (?) Harvard (?) he said: “… They just send it to me. They trust me. The dumb fucks.”
He was mask-off from the beginning. We’re (society, not addressing anyone individually) just really blind to threats when distracted by shiny, noisy crap.
You forget this is, by definition, before Facebook. It’s also before any social media became popular. People had never heard the name Zuckerberg, let alone heard what he was like. And people had not had to deal with this type of predatory company. Google was still “don’t be devil”, and Microsoft was a completely different type of predator - one asking for money, not giving things for free.
As others have said: hindsight is easy, but this was a very different time.
Most people would not have known about what Zuck in the earlier years of Facebook. Heck, even to this day, either most people still don’t know or don’t care. Facebook is still extremely popular in developing countries because the site is free regardless of whether or not you have a mobile internet data. But they don’t realise they are being manipulated by the social media to give them free information and to vote a certain way in elections that is against their own interest.
It’s kind of like survivorship bias: The ones who rise to the very top must be the most ruthless and biggest pieces of shit. It’s like taking 20 trials to rise to the top, and to succeed each trial fucking others over and only concerning yourself with your advancement is beneficial. It only leaves the worst.
It certainly paves the way for kakistocracy
The worst thing about vulture capital targeting young manipulable tech bros for their get rich schemes is that has created a self perpetuating mono culture of spoiled rich grifters with stunted emotional maturity that never progressed beyond teenage boy. The have been allowed to dominate everything and are shaping the rage baited, meme ridden, dumbarse, ignorant dystopia. Lets just pull the plug on them and stop giving them money. Then they will all fuck off back to their mum’s basement to play video games and jerk off to their ai.
I understand how creepy this is but why is this any different than the 1000s of cameras on poles literally everywhere these days. Neither of these should be acceptable
I trust individuals with a camera or two far more than I trust the government with cameras everywhere.
The cameras on poles can’t see literally everywhere, and can’t physically follow you around.
And the cameras on poles have (at least in theory) regulations and laws governing how their footage can (and cannot) be used.
MetaCreepSpecs don’t have any such restrictions.
Ok. How is this different from cameras on phones, or cameras hidden in shirt button?
It’s not, and the same rules apply to those.
It wouldn’t historically be crazy to take your sunglasses into a locker room or bathroom, for example. Now? WTF DUDE. YOU SOME KIND OF CREEP!?
The cameras on poles are meant for public spaces and security. Meta glasses are for whatever the fuck the wearer will intend the recordings for for private use.
The article is about people being filmed in public places though.
Completely agree, but because another bad thing exists, it’s no reason not to care about this bad thing.
These are also separate (but obviously related) issues. The flock and other surveillance cameras are about control and, well surveillance. These meta glasses are about personal interactions and predatory behavior of creepy people. They are also markedly different than cameras in phones, since they are much more obvious that they are recording.
They both need to go.
Which is why I said neither of these should be acceptable.
Which is why I said I completely agree. Just adding some context…
Oh sorry. Reading comprehension is not my strong point… 😀 Carry on.
No worries, we’re all friends here. Carry on yourself :)
Because somehow those recordings being misused is less offensive than these recordings being misused.
Honestly, the privacy aspect in public is completely out the window already. Anyone arguing that these are somehow worse than what already exists is either arguing in bad faith or misunderstands the current (previous?) state of things.
They’re not worse, but having yet another thing invading our privacy in public IS worse. No sense in giving up even more ground.
invading our privacy in public
Stop and think about what you just said for a second. Privacy……in public. You have no privacy in public, those are opposites.
There’s degrees of privacy. People don’t deserve to be recorded 24/7 just because they happen to be outside.
You might skip any trips to urban UK.
US cities are doing it too, but I just avoid urban areas as much as possible regardless.
They don’t “deserve” to, but it is not illegal if they are. If you’re in a public space you shouldn’t expect privacy……because you’re in a public place. That’s pretty obvious.
Found the creep.
Something being legal doesn’t make it morally correct and the rest of us should oppose this shit in every way we can, not simply expect it.
Oppose what, that you can be filmed or photographed without explicit consent when you’re in public?
So if I go to the Eiffel Tower, I have to go and ask the hundreds of other people there if they consent to me taking their photo simply because they’re in my photo? Or if I see a criminal breaking into a house, I have to ask them if I can take their photo/video if I want to report them and hand over my photos/video to the police?
Difference being: we’re kind of powerless against government surveillance high up on a fence, but we can sanction the class traitor glassholes with an accidental elbow to the glasses and a clumsy step on them.
Seems like you’re giving a pass to government and corpos, while assaulting fellow citizens.
I intend on getting whatever glasses eventually come out with an AR layer involved, camera or not. Doesn’t mean I’ll be constantly recording. In fact I’d likely almost never record anything.
And apparently that means I deserve an elbow to the face.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For AR you need to be recording. If you are recording, it is being sent to Facebook servers. You accepted Facebook’s terms and conditions, not me.
If you don’t want to be punched, you should advocate for laws that make the glasshole glasses ugly through non-avoidable methods of detecting if the glasses are recording.
For example by requiring every glass hole glass to have a physical cover that physically covers the view of the camera, and it should be a bright color to easily see if it is covering the camera or not. The contour of the camera should be painted with an equally bright color, contrasting highly with the cover. So you can easily see if the cover is covering it completely.
A led that turns on when recording is not enough, it’s very easy to remove a led from a device.
If you want to not use glass hole glasses for evil, you should want it to be mandatory for other people to see if you’re using it for evil or not.
AR could never work by sending a recording to an external server. At least not with available technology. And in fact, you wouldn’t necessarily need to even have image data, lidar would suffice. All handled on device.
Calculating the AR locally doesn’t mean that you won’t be sending the recording to Facebook.
They don’t collect data because it is necessary for the technology they use. They collect data because they sell it.
No, I am not giving a pass to government and corpos. But people recording others in public are henchmen of the very same fascist governments and yes, you deserve an elbow to the face if you record ANYONE (in more detail than within a large group of pedestrians) in public EVER without their explicit consent. Because you are - at least in civilized countries - violating privacy laws with the expectation that no one will sue you for it.
You’ve already stated that simply wearing them is assaultable. You have no way of knowing I’m recording, so you’ve just made the assumption that I am.
You’ll find that in almost every civilised country recording in public is 100% allowed. It’s what you do with the footage that has restrictions and laws around it.
Privacy in public is not a thing. They’re literally antonyms.
is being done != is being allowed. don’t film people without explicit consent, or you deserve whatever happens to you as a consequence.
Sorry but the law is the law, and in public places you can and will be filmed and they don’t need your explicit consent. Which countries do you think it is illegal to film people in public places without explicit consent?
If you don’t like it, don’t go out in public. Also don’t pretend like anyone here is going to do anything to anyone wearing them lol. Everyone is a hero behind their keyboard. There would be no consequences.
What are you even talking about? How is being filmed not worse than not being filmed, privacy-wise?
One is state approved surveillance. The other is just a camera that is limited in scope, view, and usage.
This is what I don’t get either. We literally have dozens of various camera options monitoring us in public, from random video doorbells to store CCTV, state/police CCTV, Google Maps cars, people on their phones, police officers and even random hired security thugs posing around with wearable cameras, drones, you name it… but the problem is cameras built into glasses?
Most European countries have actually codified that one has no expectations of privacy in public - that is, one may be recorded while out and about. Of course there’s legislations about harassment - e.g. following someone with a camera and specifically recording them, in an attempt to harass or threaten them - and what essentially constitutes as blackmail (“I’ll remove this video of you if you pay me”), so people should be using the recourse for those crimes, not criminalising a new product category.
Just owning a camera didn’t make upskirt photos legal, nor does using a Meta camera glass make harassment legal.
Do you know the meaning of CCTV?
Also yes, you can have a reasonable expectation of privacy while in public – within reason.Legally, you don’t.
And while indeed CCTV used to mean that it’s closed circuit, today it now refers simply to camera systems installed for public (in the sense of non-clandestine) surveillance purposes. Given most these systems are cloud connected, they’re hardly closed circuit, right? Yet we still use the term.
It’ll only be a matter of time before some gross troglodyte makes an app for the glasses that will use AI to simulate what everyone would look like naked.
You know that will happen.
I hope the AI lies and makes me look hot.
I assume it already has. Wasn’t this in the news already?
I never understood why a well-known brand like RayBan would want to be associated with this.
Most people are so stupid and just do whatever they’re told to the extent that if meta releases these glasses and tells you that they’re cool, then people will be like, wow, these glasses are cool. Rayban just wants in on it. It makes a lot of sense unfortunately.
They were bought by Luxotica years ago.
as literally almost all glasses brands
Yes exactly. Their question was parallel to asking why a company like gatorade ([Pokesi]) would put hfcs and barely any vitamins in their sports drinks. Its a mega corp now and only cares about profit, not image.
Gatorade never had vitamins, even in its original formulation. It was flavored water with salt to help athletes with electrolyte depletion.
Also, Gatorade is owned by Pepsi. Maybe you’re thinking of Powerade, which was crap.
Yeah, i seem to have gotten their parent corp mixed but idgaf about which soda mega corp is giving people diabetes as a sports supplement, so…
Powerade has more electrolytes and vitamins that support recovery. They are both ass but powerade is def the better options of the two. Gatorade is fr just sugar water.
I can’t see the word electrolyte without thinking “it’s what plants crave”.
And Meta probably have Luxotica a large sack of cash to make these glasses.
Who would’ve known this would happen? Everyone. Meta knew people would use it for the bad and they still decided to go on with it because money.
Hope there will be a way to prevent being recorded, like some tech that disables it or something.
like some tech that disables it or something.
The word you’re looking for is “hammer”.
Baseball bats have better range.
Yeah, but nothing delivers the message better than calming grabbing the glasses, put them on the table in front of the glasshole, smash them with the hammer in a single confident blow and then placing the remnants back on their face. No words spoken, just a powerfull message delivered.
There are lights that work on some cameras. I’m not sure which (infrared, I think prolly others). Search the web. They exist. But how are you gonna have that at all times everywhere? Easier to set the Meta HQ on fire. And that’s prolly not easy.
But how are you gonna have that at all times everywhere?
Someone made a hoodie with IR LED lights all around the face. I bet one could also build it into a necklace or something, but you’d need some sort of battery in your pocket to power them.
The real problem with these is that they are only really effective at night. In daylight, the blinding effect of the LEDs is minimized.
There are lights that work on some cameras. […] Search the web. They exist.
Or look in real life :-)
They are small and you can see them only from some specific angle. And not quite bright.
I think they are referring to camera-blinding IR lights
there are open source android apps that tell you when a meta rayban is nearby (using the phone’s ability to scan nearby bluetooth devices) which isn’t really good enough but it’s something i guess
https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
if you’re a woman and the creep is a man, there’s always the option of pepper spray i guess, though then you will have to justify yourself somehow. i don’t think predominantly male chud cops will accept the reasoning of “i feel unsafe” from women, even if it’s true and valid.
as for impractical ideas, you can always carry around a 5W laser pointer and then try and fry the camera. of course does not work irl.
People will always find ways to abuse technology.
It’s a good thing they brought in “experts” to point this out.
Years ago I tried calling out the normalization of anybody recording anybody in public without their knowledge or consent, and nobody cared because I was a man so they thought I didn’t deserve privacy. Now the headlines frame it as a women’s issue and suddenly everyone cares.
It’s not a gendered thing. It’s a privacy issue. People didn’t care when I raised concerns about it, and I’m not surprised that it’s biting people on the ass.
I still think it’s wrong, I just don’t find it surprising given people’s reactions whenever I raised concerns about it.
Also, ray-ban was stupid for allowing this because obviously nobody is going to buy their shit anymore. They had a distinctive design that now nobody is going to trust…
I can tell you the vast majority of people don’t care AND Raybans gets their name in the media more often so it’s marketing for them.
That’s putting a lot of weight in the “all publicity is good publicity” assumption
When nobody gives a fuck, it unfortunately holds true.
They’ve made crap sunglasses for a while now. I went to another company for my Aviators.
I hate to tell you, but whatever the other company you went to is, it’s almost certainly Luxottica, the same people who make Ray-Ban now.
I never said I liked raybans, but for a while over a decade ago they were all the rage with the hipster/indie crowd. People liked them, and their style was distinctive. So distinctive that even a cheap knockoff were called “raybans” for the shape of the frame and lenses.
Now no one in their right mind besides annoying tech bros are going to wear raybans, because anyone who sees them is going to assume they have cameras with facial recognition linked to meta’s servers.
I’ve always thought an EMP bomb would do some good. Snap worker bees out of their unhealthy relationship with working, disable vehicles, make people fulfil their needs physically
I figured that would kill pacemakers, but it might not. it’ll definitely kill electric wheelchairs and insulin fridges though.
kill everyone with a pacemaker, disable emergency systems, create traffic chaos
Damn, poor pacemaker dudes
Satan laughing spreads his wiiiiinngggssss
Stories like this are gonna get worse. These glasses naturally self-select for assholes.
Glassholes.
Right? It’s a collab between Meta and Ray-Ban ffs, what kind of people did they think were going to be buying them?
I kinda like Ray-Ban (their luxotica ties notwithstanding) and my current eyeglasses and sunglasses are RB. But the partnership with Meta is what really turns me off, and may actually persuade me to make sure my next pair are not RB.
The free app NearbyGlasses can detect their Bluetooth signal and tell you if someone is wearing them in range of your phone.
This could save you from being filmed by influencers, or creeps. Let the women in your life know.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.nearbyglasses
Ugh watch me install this then have it just be government owned spyware
https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
it is öpen source
I think we have some Meta Glasses owners replying as well.
Developed by a PhD professor in the Sociology of Gender and the Applied Sciences at LMU Munich:
This is apparently their first app, as they’re a programming hobbyist. Their research is in technology’s effects on women and gender relations.
as they’re a programming hobbyist.
So they vibe-coded it. No thanks.
So, you’re kind of - an idiot, huh?
If you actually looked at the link that they gave you, it’s pretty obvious that the person has a lot of programming experience. I would say less than 2% of the developers I’ve ever met have an app on the app store so for a lot of them it would be their first app if they published one too.
deleted by creator
Wow, this violates privacy! You mean this scans for nearby devices? Completely exposing nearby consumers of those devices? Totally illegal
\sbtw
