Earlier this month, Facebook announced the worst idea that it has come up with for… oooh, the last few weeks.
The social media goliath has launched its first pair of smart glasses, “Ray-Ban Stories.”
That’s right, they’re branded Ray-Ban, almost as if Facebook knew that putting its name on devices that will be used to film others without their knowledge might be something of an own goal.
(Quite what the Ray-Ban brand is thinking it will do to its own brand by getting into bed with Facebook is anyone’s guess…)
Readers will, of course, remember the disaster that was Google Glass – the dorky “smart” eyewear that uploaded footage of individuals without their knowledge to Google’s servers, whilst simultaneously making their wearer (known as “glassholes”) look like a complete berk.
Unsurprisingly, the general public didn’t take kindly to folks filming them with Google Glass without their permission.
At best if you walked around wearing Google Glass you might be greeted with a cheery…
“There’s some weird shit on your face”
… at worst you’d be met with a swinging fist and a shout of…
“Stop being an arsehole!”
It was no surprise to hear that many establishments banned wearers of Google Glass from its premises, and they were viewed as highly anti-social.
Facebook, however, clearly wasn’t put off by Google’s disastrous experiment with digital spectacles all those years ago, and has now launched its own version.
Now, to give them their due, Ray-Ban Stories are nothing like as dorky-looking as Google Glass. In fact, they look pretty much like Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.
But they still allow someone to spy on you, take a photograph or a short movie which will – presumably – end up posted on Facebook without your explicit permission.
So, what’s the latest? Well, European privacy regulators have said they are investigating whether Facebook’s “smart” spectacles are doing enough to warn people that they are being recorded by the wearer.
Ray-Ban Stories have a small LED which lights up to indicate that a video is being taken. But, of course, you’d have to know about how the glasses worked to realise that that meant you were being recorded.
Furthermore, would you notice the small non-blinking LED anyway?
“While it is accepted that many devices including smart phones can record third party individuals, it is generally the case that the camera or the phone is visible as the device by which recording is happening, thereby putting those captured in the recordings on notice. With the glasses, there is a very small indicator light that comes on when recording is occurring. It has not been demonstrated to the DPC and Garante that comprehensive testing in the field was done by Facebook or Ray-Ban to ensure the indicator LED light is an effective means of giving notice,” wrote Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which has the unenviable job of regulating Facebook’s antics because it is where the social media company’s European base is located.
It seems to me that there’s a very simple fix for this problem, which only requires a little redesign of the glasses.
How about if the spectacles had an additional dot matrix display above them, which scrolled a message that announced to bystanders that they might be being filmed?
Of course, that doesn’t help people who are visually-impaired or blind. They have just as much right to privacy as the rest of us. So the visual warning should be accompanied by a clear and loud audible warning:
“WARNING! A TWAT WEARING FACEBOOK-CONNECTED SPECTACLES IS IN THE VICINITY”
That should work nicely.
Leave your own comments below on how you think the problem would best be resolved, and I’ll pass them on to Mark Zuckerberg.
For more discussion of this topic, be sure to check out this episode of the “Smashing Security” podcast:
Smashing Security #244: 'Facebook Ray-Bans, VPN spies, and AI camouflage'
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts | Other... | RSS
More episodes...
So, here's the thing. Getting a internet-connected camera/heads-up display on a lot of faces in some fashion has to happen before wide-spread augmented reality (AR) can begin to take off. Because of the inherent commercial/advertising potential this technology would make possible, there is probably a decent amount of corporate investment just waiting for the right platform to come along. This particular Facebook entry will likely fail for the same reasons as Google Glass did (privacy concerns/squick factor). But even without a wearable face-cam set up to take recordings on demand, overcoming the real technological challenges has so far been more hyperbolic than hopeful (see Magic Leap, et al.) – but some day, something like this will most likely be A Thing™.
Sheisseberg is a huge POS. Fakebook will collapse. We will help as much as possible to see the end of it. And the twat at twatter is going the same way. Sad to see you there but understandable.
Keep up the good work Graham.
I placed a comment. It looks like the "comments police" didn't like it. Tough! That is the good thing with other platforms available to us.
I will pass the word around. Is Akismet the "fact checker"?
Good luck!
So it got posted after all.
I'm glad.
Regards
All that electronics close to the skull may have potential for brain damage.
If you did have a point with the blind people, no cctv would exist anywhere. Unfortunately I think it will take off.
"Have got a problem"
Write much?
I have them and I have no desire to film or photograph anyone that doesn’t know it. If your out in public that’s how it goes anyways. There will always be idiots that screw up a wet dream. I like my glasses and I’m not bothering anyone. Trust me you can be secretly filmed in so many ways it’s ridiculous. There have been glasses that do this for a decade. I’m sure you know this already. I don’t even upload any of my photos to Facebook. You don’t have to. They sit alongside all my other photos. People have zero privacy. Get used to it.
I know, it sucks that so many of us twats want to film small children and animals that move too fast for us to get out our phones or other devices and film them. I'm such a twat for wanting to record my grandchildren and my dogs. I resent the implication that finding these glasses enjoyable or convenient makes me a twat. Or why that choice of word is your preferred descriptor. Misogynist much? Narrow-minded much? I'm no fan of Zuckerborg or Facebook, but I will take my technology where I can get it. I'm sorry you are mad and feel bad for whatever people did to you to make you such a prickly pear, but stop taking it out on others and invest in some therapy.
So here is the funny thing,, there is a pair of RayBan Stories in a lost and found. What makes this funny as well as disturbing is the fact that there is a no camera policy that is unforced and the information is made known to all that enter; this pair of glasses has a small sticker the same color of the frames (black) covering the LED light on the frame. Since nobody has returned for the glasses and learning how they are charged (a charging case) due to a dead battery, we were unable to look at pics to try and find the owner, finding the attempt to hide the LED supports the publics concern of privacy being invaded.
Black tape guy is a twat.