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’s possible for the smart glasses to record inadvertently. Meta’s 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’ knowledge. Fears brought to life Meta has been steadfast in its push for gadgets that put microphones and cameras in people’s homes and on their faces, while battling fears that the devices could be used for nonconsensual recordings. Contractors for Sama, 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 “stream of privacy-sensitive data that is fed straight into the tech giant’s systems,” per a machine translation, resulting in workers viewing private activities, like a glasses owner’s partner coming out of a bathroom naked.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing