Meta is rolling out an obvious fix to make its AI glasses less creepy amid backlash over the glasses’ non-consensual recordings that have flooded the Internet.
On Friday, The Verge reported that Meta closed a loophole that made it easy for smart glasses users to cover up an LED light that is supposed to alert bystanders that the device is actively recording. Meta had previously deactivated recording if a user attempted to start capturing video after placing a sticker over the light, but people quickly learned that they could get around that by reversing the order of the steps and covering up the light after they started recording.
In a post on Threads, Meta’s executive vice president of wearables, Alex Himel, explained that an update would be rolled out soon that ensures that “the camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording.” That way “the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery,” Himel said.
According to Himel, “only a tiny minority of people try to get around these protections, and the fact they have to go to these lengths shows our efforts are working. We’ll keep improving and evolving our approach.”
However, bad actors may still be able to modify the glasses or tamper with the light without affecting recordings. And it’s unclear if popular bypasses, like using semi-transparent stickers that make the light less noticeable, would block recording under Meta’s new safeguard.
Data regulators in the European Union are currently probing privacy concerns with Meta’s glasses and have suggested that Meta may not have properly field-tested the LED light to ensure that the public would understand its safety functionality. Germany is considering banning the glasses after a nonprofit filed a criminal complaint alleging that they breach Germany’s strict privacy laws, Politico reported. And Germany is not alone, as many countries in the EU mull a crackdown on the technology, which they see as invasive and carrying a risk of expanding mass surveillance. Another Politico report confirmed that the European Data Protection Board will release a report later this summer to decide what actions should be taken to ensure no one in the EU is recorded without their consent.
Meanwhile, there’s a proposed nationwide class action lawsuit advancing in the US that accuses Meta of continually lying about privacy risks in the marketing of its AI glasses. Meta has yet to file a response in that litigation, but in its statements and marketing campaigns, the tech giant continues to insist the glasses are designed with privacy in mind.
In addition to the tweak to block some smart glasses users from bypassing the only safeguard that helps prevent nonconsensual recording, Meta also launched a new marketing campaign to spread awareness about the LED light feature, The Verge reported.
In Los Angeles, for example, there’s a billboard that shows an image of a smiling girl wearing Meta glasses, with her fingers placed to draw attention to the recording light that shines as brightly as her grin. The caption reads, “The camera lets you capture the moment. The light lets everyone around you know when you do.”
“Designed for everyone,” the billboard says. “Not just the people wearing them.”
Whether that messaging is going to drive it home to people breezing past the billboard that Meta glasses may be recording you if you see a light on, the EU suspects that we don’t really know.
However, people who bought into the privacy promises and are now suing Meta for false advertising have warned that Meta has long been pushing this messaging, claiming in prior ads that Meta AI Glasses are “Built for your privacy and others’ too.” But “in reality, users of Meta AI Glasses cannot control what happens to their data, or the data they capture of the people around them,” the users alleged.
Although the class action complaint is not explicitly focused on nonconsensual recording, the complaint alleged that its core claims reveal another layer of the issue that many members of the public likely don’t understand from the marketing campaigns.
The lawsuit challenges Meta’s advertising claims that glasses users control data, saying this is “false” and alleging that Meta does not inform users that human data annotators in Kenya review all footage captured by the glasses, allegedly in order to train Meta AI. That reportedly includes watching “deeply personal” videos, including those depicting sexual activity or bathroom visits, as well as sensitive content, like credit card information or private text messages.
As one example of how this ropes in unwitting people who aren’t aware of the privacy risks of nearby glasses, the complaint cited one video where a user set down his Meta glasses on his nightstand, which then captured video of his wife undressing.
“The video was sent to people halfway around the world to view and annotate in order to train AI—all without the woman’s knowledge that the video of her had been captured in the first place,” the lawsuit said.
Users suing are hoping to force Meta to pay out damages, including potentially punitive damages, to every person in the US who bought smart glasses under the allegedly false premise that Meta cared about user privacy.
“Despite their actual knowledge of the human review pipeline and the inherent safety and privacy risks associated with such sharing of data, Defendants have continued to market the Glasses using the same ‘designed for privacy’ representations,” the lawsuit said.
They’ve also asked the court to force Meta to change its messaging. That would include blocking Meta from continuing to advertise glasses as privacy-protecting, which users alleged would ensure that Meta’s future customers aren’t exposed to “unreasonable risks of dignitary harm, emotional distress, stalking, extortion, identity theft, and reputational injury.” In a loss, Meta could also be required to improve its public awareness campaigns and fully explain the privacy risks of its smart glasses.
If Meta’s alleged deception goes unchecked, users suing have claimed that the company will continue treating smart-glasses wearers as a lucrative new source of data, without meaningfully protecting them or the public from the most significant privacy risks.
“The consumer data is extremely valuable to Meta,” the lawsuit said. “New data input is central to AI production, but as AI labs exhaust publicly available data, proprietary sources of new data can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But instead, Meta can farm personal data from unknowing consumers who have already purchased the Products—turning consumers themselves into commodities without them ever knowing it.”
