Mark Zuckerberg's smart glasses are for creeps until the law catches up with the tech – Stephen Jardine
The technology behind smart glasses has amazing potential but the ability to film people without their knowledge creates a real problem
What has Mark Zuckerberg ever done for us? Yes, he’s made it easier to be Facebook friends with your uncle’s next-door neighbour and provided jobs for Instagram influencers who would otherwise be pretty much unemployable, but has the world’s most awkward person really made this planet a better place?
He’d say his company Meta is better connecting the world but tell that to the kids who can’t concentrate, the girls with body dysmorphia and the boys driven to suicide by online bullying. And what fresh hell is this?
Smart glasses first went on sale 20 years ago but the technology was clunky and didn’t take off. Then along came Zuckerberg with a different plan. His experts in brain manipulation put image before functionality and things changed. Now smart glasses are the hottest wearable tech and the next thing we need to worry about.
Filming red light easily disabled
To try to persuade us that is not the case, Kylie Jenner has been hired by Zuckerberg’s evil empire to promote them as the latest must-have cool accessory of the year. That is a cynically smart move.
Critics have called the products pervert specs, allowing people to walk about filming others without their knowledge or permission. Sadly, that’s likely to be a particular problem for women. Making Kylie Jenner the face of the product undercuts that narrative. Luckily for Meta, she’s not too choosy when it comes to what she promotes.
According to the company, smart glasses are just about “effortless connection”. They say a tiny red indicator light on the frame mitigates any concerns about privacy because you will know when someone is using them to film or take pictures. But guess what? Social media is awash with tips on how to disable that.
A bigger problem than digital ID
As usual, the law is failing to keep up with the technology. At present, you don’t have the right to stop someone filming or photographing you in a public space but that changes in private spaces or where you would have an expectation of privacy. Also, data protection laws start to apply if you plan to monetise the footage.
That’s why TV shows require contributor consent forms to be filled in and where that can’t be done, faces then have to be blurred.
But what happens if you’re walking down the street and some TikTok creator livestreaming via smart glasses comes up to you and tries to engage you in an exchange to create content and clicks? Where does what you want come into that equation?
For anyone concerned about the introduction of digital ID, I’d suggest this should be much higher up your list of priorities.
The technology itself is not the problem. In theory, smart glasses are amazing. With visual image recognition, they have the ability to put names to faces. Imagine walking into a party wearing smart glasses and having built in speakers tell you who everyone is and what they do? No more forgotten names or half-remembered previous encounters.
For translation services or to help the visually impaired, the tech has amazing potential. But regulation needs to catch up and the cat already seems to be out of the bag.
In the meantime, let’s just call them what they are – creep specs. And just to prove the point, Mark Zuckerberg has started wearing them on a regular basis.
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