“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.
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.
Does anyone have a Cyberpunk glitch-face counter we can start wearing to avoid facial recording?
Absolutely disgusting.
I’m being filmed without my consent by corporations everywhere I go
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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!?
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 :)
One is state approved surveillance. The other is just a camera that is limited in scope, view, and usage.
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.
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.
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)_/¯
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’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.
What are you even talking about? How is being filmed not worse than not being filmed, privacy-wise?
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.
This practicality has reportedly allowed some men in Brussels to secretly record women in public spaces.
You have no expectation of privacy in public places. In fact, if you’re in a public place you should assume you’re being recorded.
This tech has privacy concerns for sure, but this isn’t it.
In Belgium people do have an expectation of privacy in public, what they did is straight up illegal under Belgian law. If they want to film or photograph a person (not as an accidental passerby, but as the subject as was the case here), then they need to get consent from that person. If they want to share that footage online, then they need consent for that as well.
Doesn’t seem that straight forward from the article. It says you “generally” need consent, and that was said in regard to “filming and publishing”. What about just filming? The “generally” makes me think that this isn’t breaking any laws unless they publish it without consent.
I disagree. If you have thousands of these and some program live cross-matching and correlating everything about everyone, it is a different problem from “being seen in public” or even traditional street cameras. Before, they could investigate a limited number of people, so they had to focus on suspects and a case. Now they just mass trawl everyone’s lives simultaneously.
Who is “they” here?
The fact is that if you’re in public you have no expectation of privacy………because you’re in public.
Depends. You have image rights. Those may not be relevant to people taking pictures…but they are relevant to databases collecting info on you.
You don’t own “image rights” of yourself.
In the US that won’t pass muster, laws aren’t the same everywhere.
Looking at US laws it appears you’re wrong. Unless you’re in a bathroom or somewhere where privacy is expected, recording in public places without permission is completely legal.
I never understood why a well-known brand like RayBan would want to be associated with this.
They were bought by Luxotica years ago.
And Meta probably have Luxotica a large sack of cash to make these glasses.
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 am so lucky I have been to french quarter celebrations before smartphones. Some things are meant to be experienced and not documented.
I had maybe a similar experience with flamenco.
Just punch people wearing Ray-Bans on sight. Really bend those frames.
They are so many fuckers around, because they can get away with it.
When I was younger, it was more “fuck around, find out”.
There are too much " find out" missing in our current days…
It’s the whole entire point of these glasses so this surely cannot be a surprise.
I’m just waiting for bans on these glasses now, because that is inevitably where this is headed as the public at large simply cannot be trusted to handle this kind of technology responsibly.
And the harder these glasses become to spot, the broader the bans will be, undoubtedly right up the point where they’ll just straight up refuse anybody with any kind of thick framed glasses.
Are mobile phones banned in public? Cameras?
Given that cameras are readily available to the public, these glasses will likely only be banned in specific controlled locations.
I mean I can literally just put my phone in a shirt pocket with camera rolling.
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
Wow, this violates privacy! You mean this scans for nearby devices? Completely exposing nearby consumers of those devices? Totally illegal
\sbtwUgh watch me install this then have it just be government owned spyware
https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
it is öpen source
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.
deleted by creator
Look, if someone is wearing these and not announcing it, i’m going to punch them. When people get their shit lit up over this, people will get the message.
We need to nationalize two-party consent for this
I’m sorry but no one believes people when they say things like this, because it’s just not true. Pretending to be a tough guy on the internet is easy, but you’re not going to choose to go to jail because you saw a person with glasses on.
Doesn’t sound like the other person would consent, but if I were on your jury I’d say you were clearly defending yourself.
Stories like this are gonna get worse. These glasses naturally self-select for assholes.
Right? It’s a collab between Meta and Ray-Ban ffs, what kind of people did they think were going to be buying them?
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.
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.
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
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
Satan laughing spreads his wiiiiinngggssss















